SIA Newsletter (SIAN) Volume 34, Number 3, Summer 2005

little after 10 p.m. on June 20, a fire engulfedthe historic Studebaker plant (1906-1911) inDetroit’s Milwaukee Junction HistoricIndustrial District some three miles north ofthe Detroit River. The western two-thirds of

this sprawling brick factory has been abandoned and badly-deteriorated for decades, but the eastern third was occupiedby the Piquette Market, a wholesale grocery store, and awide variety of warehouses. High winds and timber floors,posts, and beams quickly turned this into a five-alarm firethat brought 150 Detroit firefighters to the scene. Onlysmoldering rubble and isolated walls remained by morning.Another Detroit industrial landmark is lost through “demo-lition by fire.”

The Studebaker plant was the most impressive, if not themost significant, automotive building in the MilwaukeeJunction district, an industrial area that developed at thejunction of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad and twoother lines. Milwaukee Junction was the “cradle of theDetroit auto industry,” the home of Studebaker, Ford,Anderson Electric, Cadillac, Fisher Body, Wilson Body,Murray Body, and numerous parts and components suppli-

Published by the Society for Industrial ArcheologyDepartment of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295

Volume 34 Number 3Summer 2005

Studebaker plant, Piquette Ave. facade, prior to the fire (left), aftermath (right).

RUIN AND RESTORATIONThe Fates of Two Historic Auto Plants in Detroit

ers. While most of Detroit’s large auto plants have beendemolished in recent decades (Dodge Main, Lincoln,Cadillac, much of the Ford Rouge plant, and all of the his-toric Chrysler plants), much has survived in MilwaukeeJunction. The Studebaker plant was the centerpiece of acollection of factories stretching along Piquette Ave., thecore of the district.

The Wayne Automobile Company (1904) built the firstsection of this building in 1906. Three Detroit automotivepioneers, Barney F. Everett, William E. Metzger, andWalter E. Flanders, took over Wayne Automobile in 1908and established the Everett-Metzger-Flanders Companyand produced the EMF car. Critics claimed that EMF stoodfor “every mechanical fault” or “every mechanic’s friend.”EMF expanded the Wayne Automobile building into alarge three-story brick factory complex that extended 677ft. along the length of Piquette Ave. The StudebakerCorporation acquired EMF in 1910 and added a fourth floorto the building in 1911, creating a factory with two millionsq. ft. of workspace. Studebaker assembled all of its auto-mobiles at this plant from 1910 to 1928, when it shiftedmanufacturing to South Bend, Indiana, the firm’s original

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home base. The company briefly produced the Rockneautomobile in the Detroit plant in 1931 and 1932.

This complex was vacant for the rest of the 1930s. Fromaround 1940 into the 1960s, Chrysler leased the westerntwo-thirds of the factory to use as a parts warehouse. TheIRS and the Detroit Public Library used the space for stor-age through the late 1960s, but it has been vacant since.The State of Michigan owned the eastern third of the build-ing by 1940 and it served as the armory for the 182nd FieldArtillery until the mid-1960s, when the state sold the prop-erty. This section has been continuously occupied by a vari-ety of businesses including the Piquette Market.

The block immediately east of the Studebaker plant con-tains the historic Ford Motor Company Piquette AvenuePlant (1904), where Ford designed the celebrated Model Tand produced the first 12,000. The building was spared anydamage because of the heroic work of volunteers involvedin preserving this factory. Three men spent the night onthe roof of the Ford Piquette plant and used fire extinguish-ers to put out flaming embers that floated onto the roof.One of Detroit’s rare historic preservation successes, theFord Piquette plant barely escaped the wrecking ball a fewyears ago. A British entrepreneur purchased the building in1989, but by the late 1990s plans were to demolish it andbuild a modern warehouse.

A group of historians and preservationists who weremembers of the Henry Ford Heritage Association launchedthe Piquette Plant Preservation Project in May 1998, andacquired an option to buy the building. This group estab-

lished the nonprofit Model T Automotive HeritageComplex, Inc. (“T-Plex”) in April 2000 and then exercisedits purchase option. With the first floor occupied by a uni-form supply company, T-Plex volunteers have cleaned upthe second and third floors and installed historical exhibitsthere. In early October 2004, the Ford Piquette plant host-ed a two-day birthday party and open house celebrating itsfirst 100 years. The Piquette plant is listed on the NationalRegister of Historic places and is under consideration forNational Historic Landmark status. T-Plex has receivedtwo substantial grants which will support (in 2005) adetailed IA study of the building by Richard K. Anderson,Jr. [SIA] and an extensive restoration of the facade, whichis showing a few wrinkles at its advanced age. More fund-raising and a lot more work lie ahead, but the survival ofthis significant building seems assured. This year’s SIA FallTour includes a banquet at the T-Plex.

Charles K. Hyde

2 Society for Industrial Archeology Newsletter, Vol.34, No. 3, 2005

RUIN AND RESOTRATION (continued from page 1)

The SIA Newsletter is published quarterly by the Society forIndustrial Archeology. It is sent to SIA members, who also receivethe Society’s journal, IA, published biannually. The SIA throughits publications, conferences, tours, and projects encourages thestudy, interpretation, and preservation of historically significantindustrial sites, structures, artifacts, and technology. By providing aforum for the discussion and exchange of information, the Societyadvances an awareness and appreciation of the value of preservingour industrial heritage. Annual membership: individual $35; cou-ple $40; full-time student $20; institutional $50; contributing $75;sustaining $125; corporate $500. For members outside of NorthAmerica, add $10 surface-mailing fee. Send check or money orderpayable in U.S. funds to the Society for Industrial Archeology toSIA-HQ, Dept. of Social Sciences, Michigan TechnologicalUniversity, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295;(906) 487-1889; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: www.sia-web.org.

Mailing date for Vol. 34, 3 (Summer 2005), Sept. 2005. If youhave not received an issue, apply to SIA-HQ (address above) for areplacement copy.

The SIA Newsletter welcomes material and correspondence frommembers, especially in the form of copy already digested and writ-ten! The usefulness and timeliness of the newsletter depends onyou, the reader, as an important source of information and opinion.

TO CONTACT THE EDITOR: Patrick Harshbarger, Editor,SIA Newsletter, 305 Rodman Road, Wilmington, DE 19809; (302)764-7464; e-mail: [email protected]. Ford Piquette plant (T-Plex).

Studebaker plant fire, June 20, 2005.

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Editor’s Note: Charles K. Hyde [SIA], professor at Wayne StateUniversity, has provided periodic updates on Detroit’s IA formany years. This installment serves as a preface to the SIA’s2005 Fall Tour, Detroit, Sept. 29-Oct. 2.

This is the 25th anniversary of the SIA Detroit meetingof 1980 and fully half of the IA sites featured in the bookletprepared for that conference, Detroit: An Industrial HistoryGuide, are either lost or badly deteriorating. Much has hap-pened since I last reported from Detroit in 1999 (SIAN,Summer 1999), and not all that I will report is bad news, butI will nevertheless lead with the negative news.

First, the outright demolitions. The Detroit EdisonCompany demolished the Lincoln Motor Car Company(NHL) complex (Albert Kahn architect, 1917-1939) inearly 2003. A year later, in suburban Plymouth, a develop-er demolished an 1882 brick factory complex which servedas the factory of the Daisy Manufacturing Company (DaisyAir Rifles) from 1886 until 1958. The greatest losses havebeen at the historic Ford Motor Company River Rougeplant (NHL), which is undergoing a major redevelopmentby the automaker. In 2004, Ford demolished the oldestAlbert Kahn-designed building at this site, the Eagle Boatbuilding (1918), AKA Building B and Dearborn Assembly,

and the Glass Plant (1924), also a notable Kahn design.The landmark Rouge Power House (1925) was the site ofa disastrous explosion in February 1999 resulting in thedeaths of six workers. Ford was in the process of replacingthe old power house at the time of the explosion and is cur-rently demolishing the building. The eight landmark stacksare already gone.

Other significant landmarks are simply abandoned andcrumbling. The Michigan Central RR Station (Warren &Wetmore architects, 1913), closed since 1986, continues todeteriorate. The City of Detroit announced vague plans inJanuary 2004 to reuse this landmark as a new headquartersfor the Detroit Police Department, but nothing has hap-pened since. Similarly, city-owned Tiger Stadium (NR,1912, 1923, 1936), abandoned in 1999, remains unused.

This correspondent had last reported that the City ofDetroit had taken control of the historic Packard MotorCar Co. factory complex (Albert Kahn architect, 1903-1930s) in 1997 because of property tax arrears. The man-ager of the complex (Dominic Cristini) disputed theseclaims and barricaded himself inside the plant, but the cityexpelled all of his rent-paying tenants. The City of Detroitbegan demolishing the plant in January 1999, but a courtsoon ordered a temporary stop to this action. In October

Motown Review VI: Detroit’s IA in 2005

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Packard factory complex (1903-1930s, partially demolished 1999)

Eagle Boat Building (1918, demolished 2004), Ford River Rouge plant.

Glass Plant (1924, demolished 2004), Ford River Rougeplant.

Lincoln Motor Car Company complex (1917-1939,demolished 2003).


2000, the court determined that Cristini had in fact paid hisproperty taxes and ordered the city to return the property tohim. The loss of his tenants has made it virtually impossiblefor the owner to perform any maintenance on the complex,which is badly deteriorating.

There is, however, good news to report. American Axle &Manufacturing bought the aging Chevrolet Forge and Axle

plant (1920s) inHamtramck (surroundedby Detroit) fromGeneral Motors in 1994and has refurbished thesprawling factory com-plex. American Axle iscommitted to remainingin the Detroit area andhas built a new corporateheadquarters next to theplant. DaimlerChryslersold its McGrawAvenue Glass plant(1917-1941) to a devel-oper who will convertthe complex into a mod-ern warehouse facility.

In 2000, GeneralMotors sold theGeneral Motors

Building (NHL, 1923), a Kahn design encasing 1.2 millionsq. ft. of office space, to a developer who then rehabilitatedthe building. The State of Michigan occupied the buildingin 2002 under a long-term lease and moved most Detroit-area state offices into the structure, now called CadillacPlace after Detroit’s founder. The giant automaker also soldthe adjacent General Motors Laboratories Building(Kahn, 1928, 1936) in 2004 to a California-based develop-er who will convert the building into a mixture of loft apart-ments and commercial space.

The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) hasplayed an important role in identifying Detroit’s IA in recentyears. In the summer of 2002, working with the AutomotiveNational Heritage Area (ANHA) and the City of Detroit,HAER carried out two important projects in Detroit. OneHAER team recorded the historic Dry Dock Engine Works(1892-1919) on Detroit’s riverfront and another conductedan in-depth inventory of historic industrial buildings andsites in a large area known as the Near East Riverfront. Thefollowing summer (2003), HAER supported a team of twostudents who inventoried industrial properties in Detroit’sMilwaukee Junction Industrial District. One result of theinventory was a driving tour brochure, a project supported byHAER, ANHA, and the Detroit Historical Museum. Somegood news to report!

Charles K. Hyde

Note: An excellent Web site that examines Detroit’s indus-trial ruins, “The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit,” can be found atwww.detroityes.com/home.

MOTOWN (continued from page 3)

General Motors LaboratoriesBuilding (1928, 1936).

General Motors Building (1923, rehabilitated 2000-01), now called Cadillac Place.

DeSoto Press Shop (1936). Rouge Power House (1925, demolished 1999-2005).

Milwaukee-area industries past and present were fea-tured at the SIA Annual Conference, attended byabout 225 SIA members, June 2-5. The confer-

ence hotel was the 1928 Hilton Milwaukee Center, former-ly known as the Schroeder Hotel, a grand Art Deco-stylebuilding in the city’s downtown. From there, attendeesfanned out across the city and its hinterlands on a diversityof tours, complemented on Saturday by the Society’s annu-al paper session, business meeting, and banquet.

Pre-conference activities on Thursday included a tour ofKohler and a brewery tour (see p. 7) while PatrickHarshbarger and Mary McCahon [both SIA] ofLichtenstein Consulting Engineers led an all-day, continu-ing-education seminar on historic bridges. The openingreception was held at the Milwaukee School ofEngineering in buildings that were once part of the Blatzbrewery. Food was served in the student lounge decoratedwith artwork from the school’s Eckhart G. Grohmann Manat Work Collection, a fascinating assemblage of paintingsdepicting workers and workplaces. John Gurda, a historianwho specializes in Wisconsin history, gave a slide-illustratedoverview of Milwaukee’s history and its ethnic neighbor-hoods that grew around important industries such as tan-ning, brewing, meatpacking, and machining.

Friday offered attendees a choice of five tours. SIAN vol-unteer ‘correspondents’ Dan Bonenberger, Jeff Darbee,Perry Green, Larry Mishkar, Elizabeth Norris, VancePackard, Bonnie Smith, Gerry Weinstein, and DavidWohlwill reported and photographed the highlights of thevarious tours and sites, as listed below.

Kohler, a family-owned company for more than 130years, is in the town of Kohler, about an hour’s drive northof Milwaukee. Now a major tourist destination with muse-um, design studio, resort hotel, and golf course, the townoriginally was laid out and built in the 1910s and 1920sbased on Walter Kohler’s vision for a model workers’ villagebased on German precedents. Conference attendees hadtwo opportunities to tour Kohler: an all-day tour onThursday or a half-day tour on Friday. Process tours coveredthe production of ceramics from clay slurry to the finished

product; enameled sinks and tubs from cast iron, from mold-ing to their final porcelain-enamel coating; and fixturesfrom brass ingots, tubing, and rods to unscratchable, highlypolished faucets and other fixtures. The SIA groups sawplenty of pours, skilled workers, high-tech and low-techceramic applications, and firings and steamy plants, some-times shutdown on hot summer days for safety. The stagingarea with 11 miles of internal overhead conveyors givessome idea of the size of the plant. The Thursday tour alsosaw the Design Center showcasing Kohler products, hadlunch at the American Club, originally built as a workers’dormitory, and drove through the planned community.

Allen Edmonds Shoe is one of the last two remainingU.S. manufacturers of men’s shoes. The privately held com-pany makes high-end, calfskin shoes and employs Hispanicworkers from Milwaukee who are bused to the plant in PortWashington from Milwaukee (30 miles) four days per week.The CEO said that the choice of Hispanics was based ontheir dexterity in working with leather, many of them com-ing from areas of Mexico where leatherwork is common andtaught at a young age. Our tour did not include workingmachines, since it was the workers’ day off, but managersguided us through the process of cutting and sewing uppers,as well as corking, 360-degree welting, and soling. How dothey economically make 122 styles in over 160 sizes with aworkforce of 70? Generic uppers—many of the uppers canbe used for up to six sizes.

Tour participants observed the manufacturing of lawnmowers, garden tractors, snow blowers, and attachments atSimplicity in Port Washington. The plant employs about500, most of whom work a station on one of six assemblylines. One of the few integrated production facilities in theindustry, Simplicity prides itself in making all of the compo-nents except engines. We saw the process from start to fin-ish—laser cutting and dye stamping of the steel withhydraulic presses up to 1,000 tons; machining; welding; andpainting (electrostatic powder coating) by robots andhumans. Fourteen garden tractors roll off the lines everyhour, and most go to 3,500 independent dealers where they



MILWAUKEEReview of 2005 Annual Conference

Making a fine, calf-skin, men’s dress shoe at Allen Edmonds.

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The lawn-tractor assembly line at Simplicity.


At the Annual Business Meeting in Milwaukee,Committee chair Pat Malone announced that

Lance Metz was the 2005 recipient of the GeneralTools Award. Lance may be the most avid IA enthu-

siast of all time. He is a tireless preservationist and acompulsive collector of artifacts, illustrations, and docu-

mentary records. However, preservation and collectionare not the only ways in which he has protected the recordof past industries; he has also contributed significantly toindustrial documentation through oral history, photogra-phy, archival research, and public interpretation in variousmedia—from exhibits to films, television productions, sym-posia, festivals, lectures, books, and articles.

Lance has been the Historian of what is now theNational Canal Museum for over twenty years, stuffing itsstorage shelves with artifacts and filling its archives to burst-ing—creating an invaluable record of industries along the

canals of the Lehigh Valley and beyond. Whenever he hasdiscovered an important collection, he has found a way toacquire it—as he did with the Crane Iron Works collection,a treasury of ledger books that document the firstanthracite-fired iron works.

Nothing that threatens our industrial heritage escapes hisattention. For instance, he recognized that the last remnantsof Pennsylvania’s silk industry were rapidly disappearing.Organizing a team effort to document every mill structurestill standing, he raised funds to photograph the mills, collectoral histories, and interpret the history of silk manufacturing.He even produced a documentary film on this industry.

He has given his heart and soul to the effort to save “TheSteel.” As he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “You cannottouch the history of the 20th century without touching thehistory of Bethlehem Steel.” He planted the seed and con-

Lance Metz2005 General Tools Award Recipient


Each year the SIA recognizes outstanding scholarship withinthe field of industrial archeology with its Robert M. Vogel Prize.The award honors the author of the best article to appear in theSociety’s journal, IA, within the past three years. Articlesunder consideration have a clearly stated thesis, a well-con-structed narrative, and an understandable conclusion. Theanalysis of material culture plays an important role in articlesconsidered for the prize, as does the use of high-quality illustra-tions. The prize consists of a cash award and a woodenfoundry pattern and plaque engraved with the recipient’s name.

At the 2005 Annual Business Meeting in Milwaukee,this year’s award was presented by Greg Galer, on behalfof Larry Gross, this year’s Vogel Prize Committee Chair,to Frederic L. Quivik for his article Landscapes asIndustrial Artifacts: Lessons from Environmental History,published in IA Vol. 26, No. 2 (2000), pp. 55-64.

Fred sets the stage with a careful review of the shiftingemphasis of scholarship. Environmentalism has broughtan interest in environmental history and scholars havebegun to develop a history of industry and the natural aswell as the built environment. Just as industrial archeolo-gy has broadened its scope from recording structures andprocesses, to industrial complexes, to the human environ-ments of workers, managers, and owners, Fred adds thelarger biological landscape. He carries the field out thefactory’s back door to see where the waste products go, andwho ends up dealing with them. This approach enableshim to reveal, explore, and contextualize competingvisions of Western development. Using the physical evi-dence of the built and biological landscape (albeit in thiscase built of slag and filled with toxic tailings), court cases,and the testimony of parties as disparate as ranchers,

smelters, and forest rangers, Fred describes divergent con-temporary views of a single landscape. Slag walls and achannelized creek shift from an oddity to a toxic wastecontainment area. He moves on to imagine improvedinterpretation not only of the National Park Service’sButte site, but also its Grant Kohrs Ranch—interpretationwhich becomes more intricate and complex, but alsounderstandable, meaningful, and ultimately more interest-ing and revealing. Fred takes us beyond tales of con-frontation with the natural elements to a battle “to deter-mine whose vision of the environment would prevail.”

Fred presents a clear and well-argued thesis thatinvolves a broad new field and engages a wide audience.He goes beyond process and product to treat issues in asweeping environmental context, extending his use ofthe site and of industrial archeology, to engage an impor-tant local and national debate. His approach provides uswith a new way to begin to integrate the “brownfields”aspect of industrial heritage into our more traditionalfocus on production technology and infrastructure, there-by avoiding a perhaps unwitting blind spot in our assess-ment of industry’s impact on the world at large.

Fred also answers superbly the critical “So what?” ques-tion, a benchmark for all journal submissions that sepa-rates the merely antiquarian from the truly scholarly andanalytical. Fred’s work should encourage future writers toaim similarly to answer the larger questions that theirfindings raise. With Landscapes as Industrial Artifacts Fredclearly demonstrates the value of environmental analysisto our work.

Greg Galer

Frederic L. Quivik—2005 Vogel Prize Winner


No visit to Milwaukee would be com-plete without breweries and beer. TheThursday afternoon tour was led by SusanAppel, historian of brewery architecture.The tour began with a brief stop at the Cpt.Frederick Pabst Mansion, the last of manygrand houses that used to line MilwaukeeAve. Adjacent to the 1889 mansion is thePabst Pavilion from the 1893 ColumbianExposition, converted to a chapel in themid-20th century after the Archdiocese ofMilwaukee acquired the property.

We proceeded two miles west, makingour way into Miller Valley, home of thecity’s last major brewery. Here alongState Street stand 76 buildings on 82acres including a modern reproduction ofthe c.1850 Plank Road Brewery facade,meant to portray the place that FrederickMiller bought from the sons of Jacob Bestin 1855. Our “hardhat” tour included the brew house withits picturesque lauter tuns and brew kettles, the packagingand keg line, filtration and utilities along with the MillerValley Brewery (pilot plant), and one of the old caves thatwas used to store lager in the 19th c. In addition, the groupsampled Lite and High Life. It was quite refreshing.

Next we headed back east on Highland Avenue toward thevast Pabst Brewery complex, passing homes of two Pabst sonson the north side of the avenue. Driving into the Pabst site at8th and Juneau, we were struck by the scale of the property,

which, when compared to Miller, had manymore 19th-c. buildings and fewer modernintrusions. Our tour guide, Jim Haertel,explained the redevelopment plans thatunfortunately include tearing down all but 10of the 28 buildings. After sampling from avariety of the Pabst products now brewed byMiller (Pabst, Jacob Best, Schlitz, etc.), whichwere good, we got back on the bus and head-ed north past smaller former breweries includ-ing the E. L. Husting Brewery (Vliet and5th) and the Obermann Brewery (Cherryand 5th). Along the way, we also saw theWater St. Brewery, a modern micro-brewerand the former Blatz Brewing Co.

On our way to the Lakefront Brewery,we passed through Schlitz Park seeing theadaptive reuse of the old bottling building,the 1890 brew house, and the former SchlitzStables, now United Way offices. Lakefront

is a microbrewery (no more than 15,000 barrels a year).Den we gotta sample some gutt biers. An’ the guy that

showed us aroun’ was a real hoot. He took us into the backan’ showed us where an’ how dey make da bier usin’ da 1516German Purity Law. I tink dat der primary fermentationtanks were painted liek da 3 stooges! We drank some morebier and den we wen’ back to da hotel an’ da reception. Letshear it for da brewers!

Dan Bonenberger

Kettles at the Pabst brew house.

Breweries, Breweries, Breweries

are sold under the names of Simplicity and Snapper withengines by Kohler, Briggs & Stratton (Simplicity’s new par-ent company), Honda, and others.

Decommissioned in 1903, the Port Washington LightStation is owned by the city and being restored by the PortWashington Historical Society. The current 1860 buildingwith integrated house and tower is built of cream-city brickwith a light 132-ft. above Lake Michigan. Recent restora-tion includes the participation of the Grand Duchy ofLuxembourg. Yes, around 2000, in recognition of the manyimmigrants from Luxembourg who settled in this area in themid-19th c., and in gratitude for the liberation ofLuxembourg during WWII, the tower and light were recon-structed in Luxembourg and ceremoniously brought to PortWashington for installation.

Just down the bluff from the light station is the PortWashington Power Plant. We saw the demolition of theformer coal-fired plant, built in the 1930s, juxtaposedagainst the construction of the new natural gas-fired plant,just going online. The reuse of the site made sense: thetransmission lines were in place; Lake Michigan was therefor cooling water for the steam cycle and to chill air for the

combustion turbines; and the local community was accus-tomed to having a major power plant in their midst.

North of Milwaukee is the small town of Saukville, home ofCharter Steel. Still headed by a member of the foundingMellowes family, the company produces a wide range of steelwire and rod in diameters between 7/32 in. and 1-3/8 in. Welearned that the difference between ‘wire’ and ‘rod’ varies inthe industry. At Charter, a rod is finished in the roll mill, whilewire is drawn through a die. Charter’s raw material is scrapsteel, which is melted in electric-arc furnaces. The moltensteel’s composition is adjusted by means of additives such asmanganese and then is transferred by ladle to the continuouscaster. It puts out billets that are cut into pieces weighing 4,400lbs. One by one, the billets enter the roll mill, a long series ofwaist-high roll stands that gradually shape and lengthen thebillets into the desired diameter and cross section. The end ofthe process is a winding machine that coils the finished prod-uct, resulting in a long row of steel coils that glow a dull red andfade to gray as they cool. Charter has about 600 employees andproduces 700,000 tons of finished products yearly that end upin items as diverse as guitar and piano strings, automobile oildipsticks, and Flexible Flyer sled runners.

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President Christopher Andreae opened the meeting inthe Monarch Ballroom of the Hilton-Milwaukee CityCenter Hotel.

Secretary’s Report: Secretary Richard Andersonannounced that the minutes of the 2004 Annual Meetinghad been published in the SIAN (Fall 2004) and asked ifthere were any additions or corrections. There being none,the Secretary’s report was accepted by motion and unani-mous vote.

Treasurer’s Report: Treasurer Nanci Batchelor reportedthat the SIA is classified as tax-exempt under the IRS Code501(c)3 as an educational organization. We file a Form 990tax return yearly. The Society maintains its books andrecords on a cash basis and maintains a calendar year. Thereport that follows is an accounting of the year that endedDec. 31, 2004.

We began 2004 with a total fund balance of $245,480.Cash receipts for the year totaled $99,436. The majority ofour annual income comes from the various membership duescategories. In 2004 the total dues received were $72,635.The balance of $26,801 was comprised of interest income($1,534), publication sales ($1,394), receipts of excess fundsfrom tours and conferences ($17,400), and finally contribu-tions, both general and restricted ($3,408). Total expensesfor the year were $94,608. The production costs of our majorpublications combined for a total of $28,106. The balanceof $66,502 was spent on a combination of labor ($35,049),postage ($3,650), insurance and legal fees ($1,223), prizesand awards ($1,300), a contribution of $10,000 to the Dept.of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University(MTU), and a few miscellaneous items. The SIA closed2004 with excess revenues over expenses of $4,828 and atotal fund balance of $251,962, of which $25,699 is inrestricted funds and $28,000 is reserved for preservationgrants. To date in 2005, the SIA has had a total of $30,124in cash receipts and has expended $52,944. The treasurer’sreport was passed by motion and unanimous vote.

Board Report: President Andreae thanked the departingboard members, Susan Appel, Perry Green, and Bode Morin,for their service. He brought to the meeting’s attention thenew SIA preservation grants program. Last year, four grantswere made; this year, six. The grants were for a maximum of$3,000 and covered a wide range of activities. Three studentscholarships were awarded this year. In our ongoing effort tointroduce people to the concepts of industrial archeology, wehad 28 people attend the bridge course given at this confer-ence. He asked that anyone with suggestions for further edu-cational activities get in touch with the board. In general,the SIA has three offerings: the annual conferences, falltours, and special study tours. In addition we have our pub-lications, the SIAN edited by Patrick Harshbarger and theIA Journal edited by Pat Martin.

Local Chapters: President Andreae recognized the SIA’snumerous individual chapters, and he strongly encouraged each

one of the members present to join one or create one, and inves-tigate local IA. As is the tradition at annual meetings, he thencalled on members of each chapter to stand for recognition.

Membership: President Andreae commented that hehad two ideas to emphasize to the members present. First,“ask not what your Society can do for you, but ask what youcan do for your Society.” The SIA consists of volunteers,and they pull together to make the Society work. TheSociety is as strong as its members make it. Out of 1,800members, only two or three hundred come to annual meet-ings. If you are approached about an executive position,please consider the request seriously. Secondly, try to enlistyounger people with an interest in IA to join us.

Headquarters Report: Pat Martin commented thatalmost no one has complaints about the Web site or head-quarters operations thanks to administrative assistant DonDurfee and his attention to membership and registration.Regarding the Journal, it is being caught up. There are twonew issues out, and there will be at least one more by theyear’s end.

Tours and Conferences: President Andreae introducedMary Habstritt, who received a standing ovation for herwork in putting together the Milwaukee conference. Shethanked the membership and the many conference volun-teers. The Detroit fall tour is scheduled for Sept. 29-Oct. 2.A special study tour is headed for Bologna, Italy, Nov. 20-27. The 2006 Annual Conference will be in St Louis, andthe 2007 conference is tentatively scheduled for Seattle.The 2006 Fall Tour will be in Youngstown, OH, and studytours are being considered for northern England in 2006and Switzerland in 2007.

Awards: Greg Galer presented the Vogel Prize for theoutstanding article to appear in the last three years of the IAJournal to Fred Quivik. Pat Malone presented the GeneralTools Award for Distinguished Service to IndustrialArcheology to Lance Metz (see articles in this issue).President Andreae invited Michael Hunt, the chair of theHistory & Heritage Committee of the American Society ofMechanical Engineers, to present a special award. Onbehalf of the ASME, Michael presented Robert Vogel witha citation and achievement award for long and meritoriousservice to the History & Heritage Committee.

Elections Justin Spivey, chair of the NominationsCommittee, thanked Martha Meyer, Jet Lowe, and VancePackard for their assistance as committee members. Electedto the Board of Directors were Jay McCauley, WilliamMcNiece, and Kevin Pegram. Elected to the NominationsCommittee was Cydney Millstein.

Upon motion and unanimous vote, the meeting wasadjourned.

Respectfully submitted,Richard K. Anderson, Jr.

Secretary

MINUTES OF THE 2005 ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETINGJune 4, 2005


Hot metal was also on display at two foundries. Motor Castings makes motorblocks and a variety of other products at a plant in the Milwaukee suburb of WestAllis. Tour participants witnessed automated coring, green-sand molding, andcasting (as many as three separate pours were within view at one point!). Oneparticipant described it as a “full-contact foundry experience” with few barriers toseeing, feeling, hearing, breathing, smelling, and even tasting (not by choice) theprocesses of working with molten iron. In contrast to Motor Castings, which hadthe flavor of an older plant with an all-male workforce, the foundry at MetalTechnologies, also in West Allis, is in a modern facility employing a large numberof women in all of its departments. Metal Technologies places an emphasis onquality control and precision casting with several automated inspection machines.

Cream City Ribbon in downtown Milwaukee is one of only three producers ofcotton ribbon in the world. Unlike woven or plastic tape ribbons, Cream City’sribbon is made of cotton yarns that are laid parallel and then bound together byglue. This is accomplished on a series of machines made in Germany in the 1920s.The yarns come from spools mounted on racks with various colors of yarn enablingproduction of any combination of colors. The yarns are laid closely side by sidethrough a channel and then run through an adhesive bath that binds them togeth-er. When it dries, the adhesive has a smooth, hard surface but is clear so the yarns’color comes through. Drying occurs on large take-up reels at the end of eachmachine, aided by heat lamps. Once dry, the finished ribbon comes off the reeland into a fiber drum, which is then moved to the spooling station. Here emptyspools are mounted on a powered shaft, but a worker must tape the end of a rib-bon to each spool and then must tape or wrap each finished spool once the prop-er length has been wound. Owned by architectural historian and art restorerLorette Russenberger since 1988, Cream City Ribbon occupies part of the formerHusting brewery.

SIA conference participants bought up summer sausage and other delicacies atFred Usinger, Inc. sausagemakers (or Wurstmackers in German). While a tour ofthe production plant was not possible, the store was fascinating. Dating from thelate-19th c. and little altered, it featured a tile floor, marble counters, and largeglass display cases containing a bewildering array of meat products. Originalpainted murals ornament the upper walls and depict little German elves gleefullyslaughtering and processing hogs into meats and sausages. Munching on samplessuch as cranberry or garlic beef sausage, our group listened as Debra Usinger, afourth-generation member of the founding family, told the story of the companysince its establishment in the 1870s.

In west suburban Waukesha (Waw’-ka’shaw), Cooper Power Systems’ BadgerDrive Facility produces voltage regulators and transformers for the electric powerindustry. Its products help to transmit, control, and distribute electricity betweengenerating plants and end users. The company cuts, bends, punches, and fabri-cates coiled sheet steel into various housings and equipment cases. Then theappropriate wiring, insulators, transformers, and regulating equipment is installed.One of the most interesting pieces of fabricating equipment was a computer-con-trolled punch press that used turret-mounted dies to punch holes of various sizesinto the flattened sheet steel used in equipment housings. The press could evencut L-shaped slots by means of a square cutting die. With dangerous PCBs longout of use, Cooper now uses a special soybean oil as coolant in its transformers. Itwas odd indeed to watch skilled workers install complex electrical components intransformer housings and then see the same components submerged in a clear liq-uid.

The Steaming South tour led by Ken Cope, a local consulting engineer, startedout with a visit to the Jones Island Sewage Treatment Plant. Tour assistant,Gerry Weinstein [SIA], explained the activated sludge process that had its firstAmerican trial there. Actually very little of the original plant is left but, as some-one once said, “When you have smelled one sewage treatment plant, you havesmelled them all.” Some members of the tour got to see the fertilizer production


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A melt shop crew member monitors abatch of steel scrap heated to working

temperature in Charter Steel’s electric-arc furnace.

At Cream City Ribbon, SIA membersstudy the intricacies of making

unwoven cotton ribbon on Germanmachinery from the 1920s.

Ruins of the Milwaukee SolvayCoke plant.

The historic bridge workshop partici-pants inspect the c. 1902 swing bridge

carrying the former Milwaukee Roadmain line (now Burlington Northern/Amtrak) over the Menomenee River.



facility, the first of its kind in the nation. The resultingMilorganite (Milwaukee Organic Nitrogen) is available inlocal hardware and garden stores.

The next stop was Falk, one of the pioneers of helicalherringbone speed changing gears in the U.S.; mouths wereagape at the site of 40-ft.-diam. ore crushing and cementmill gears being machined. After an exploration of theruins of the Milwaukee Solvay Coke plant, the grouptoured Milwaukee Cylinder, producer of those un-heraldedair and hydraulic actuators that make just about everythinghappen in factories and machinery that isn’t motor operat-ed. Reeking with the fumes of sewage, cutting oil and coketailings, the group finished up with a sylvan change of paceat Trimborn Farm, now a county park, where a large lime-burning operation was begun in 1847. Guides interpretedthe house, barn, stable, and kilns.

SIA bridge enthusiasts spent Friday on an extensive tourof historic and modern bridges spanning the Menomoneeand Milwaukee rivers in downtown Milwaukee. Featuredwere the city’s movable bridges including the 1924 StateStreet Bascule Bridge, the city’s oldest remainingMilwaukee-type bascule. This bridge type, which wasdeveloped here in 1904, is characterized by movable leavesof built-up plate girders that pivot on simple trunnions rid-ing in massive bearings. Also of interest were the city’s sev-eral, hydraulically operated, vertical-lift bridges dating fromthe 1960s; the so-called “marsupial” Holton Street bridge, ahigh-level viaduct that is currently being retrofitted with asuspended pedestrian walkway below its deck; and a series ofpicturesque arch bridges dating from 1893 to 1905 inMilwaukee’s Lake Park. The bridge tour ended at theMilwaukee Art Museum’s Quadracci Pavilion andReiman Pedestrian Bridge, an architectural tour-de-forcedesigned by Santiago Calatrava and opened in 2001. Thecable-stay pedestrian bridge with its angled tower and 27cables has quickly become a symbol for the city, appearingon logos and tourist brochures everywhere. The museumalso offered a special tour on Sunday that included ademonstration of the pavilion’s Burke Brise Soleil, a 110-ton movable, wing-like sunscreen that can be raised andlowered to control light and temperature in the pavilion’sglass-enclosed reception hall.

The Saturday evening banquet, featuring German-stylecuisine, was held at the former West Allis Works of Allis-Chalmers. West Allis Works was the largest steam engineproduction facility in the U.S. when it opened in 1902.The 160-acre complex also made steam turbines, farm andconstruction machinery, wheel and crawler tractors, hydroturbines, transformers, circuit breakers, metal-cladswitchgear, pumps, and military equipment (during thewars). Allis-Chalmers declared bankruptcy in the mid-1980s, and since then much effort has been given to tryingto redevelop and adaptively re-use the buildings. The ban-quet was held in a former erecting shop that has been suc-cessfully redeveloped as office space by our host RichardCarlson, a former Siemens executive (Siemens purchasedthe Allis-Chalmers turbine-generator business in 1991).

Earlier as part of one of the Friday tours, the mayor of WestAllis and other dignitaries had met the SIA to discuss thechallenges and successes of redeveloping industrial spaces.The group also toured the West Allis Historical Society tolearn more about the community’s history and see the arti-facts and graphics on display in the museum.

The conference wound down on Sunday morning with abrunch cruise aboard the Iroquois, a passenger ferry built in1922 by the Defoe Boat & Motor Works. She served all overthe Great Lakes region, including Detroit, the ApostleIslands, and the Mackinac Islands, before heading toMilwaukee to become a tour boat in 1963. Several hourswere spent on the water exploring the harbor including thebreakwater, lighthouses, port, ferry terminal, and movablebridges. An architectural walking tour, led by faculty fromthe University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School ofArchitecture and Urban Planning, rounded out Sundayafternoon. The focus was Milwaukee’s splendid mid-19th tomid-20th-c. commercial architecture, including the 1860-61 Iron Block, a prime example of cast-iron constructionwith segmental, ornate facade.

The Milwaukee Annual Conference was organized byMary Habstritt, SIA events coordinator. She was assistedby volunteers Susan Appel , Eric Bonow, Rudy Borchert,James Bouchard, Dick Carlson, Ken Cope, Jim Dast, TomFehring, Bob Frame, Tom Garver, Katy Holmer, JohnKopmeier, Nellie Lannin, Larry Mishkar, Bode Morin, BobNewbery, Amy Squitieri, Erin Timms, Alicia Valentino,Ralph Wehlitz, and Gerry Weinstein. We also appreciatethe support we received from Milwaukee School ofEngineering, Marquette University College of Engineering,Whitnall Summit, City of West Allis, and Visit Milwaukee.The SIA thanks one and all for a splendid conference.


The Milwaukee Art Museum Quadracci Pavilion spreads itswings (Burke Brise Soleil) during the SIA’s harbor cruise.

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GENERAL INTEREST¢ Elspeth H. Brown. The Corporate Eye: Photography and the

Rationalization of American Commercial Culture, 1884-1929. Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr., c.2004. Photography as atechnology used to improve industrial efficiency. Discusses thework of Frederick W. Taylor, Eadweard Muybridge, FrankGilbreth, and Lewis Hine.

¢ Robert Carr. Industrial Archaeology in Belfast. IA News 133(Summer 2005), pp. 12-13. IA sites to visit in Belfast, Ireland.

¢ Echoes of Forgotten Places. Scribble Media(www.scribblemedia.com/echoes.html), 2005. $20. A DVD about“urban exploration, industrial archeology and the aesthetics ofdecay.” Digital footage of abandoned factories,decommissioned powerplants, etc., set to music. Includesfootage from 1936 film Steel: A Symphony of Industry.

¢ Lawrence A. Peskin. Manufacturing Revolution: TheIntellectual Origins of Early American Industry. JohnsHopkins Univ. Pr., 2004. Examines the words and deeds ofindividual Americans who made things in their own shops, metin small groups to promote industrialization, and strove foreconomic independence in the 18th c.

¢ Frederic Schwarz. They’re Still There—Again. I&T(Summer 2005), pp. 10-11. Updates on efforts to preserveChicago’s Hulett unloaders (SIAN, Summer-Fall 2002) and theKnight Foundry, Sutter Creek, CA (SIAN, Winter 2005).

¢ Frank Towers. The Urban South and the Coming of theCivil War. Univ. of VA Press, 2004. 285 pp. $45. NewOrleans, Baltimore, and St. Louis had economies and politicsmore like those of Northern cities. The existence ofmanufacturers, large working classes and their influence in citypolitics provided Southern secessionists with concrete examplesof the dangers presented by the connection with the North.

IRON & STEEL¢ David Andrews. Rebirthing Bethlehem: A Steel City Seeks

New Life. Common Ground (Summer 2005), pp. 32-45.Reviews ups and downs of preserving the Bethlehem Steel works(tour site—2002 Fall Tour, Lehigh Valley; SIAN Winter 2005).

¢ Ann Belser. Allegheny County Okays Carrie FurnacePurchase. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 13, 2005). And,Second Chance for Carrie Furnace Site. (June 14, 2005).Plans to redevelop a 137-acre former steel plant in Rankin andSwissvale outside Pittsburgh. In addition to waterfront condosand shops, the blast furnaces would become part of a steelheritage center.

¢ Foundry Notes (Lindsay Publications, Box 538, Bradley, IL60901; (815) 935-5353; www.lindsaybks.com), 2005. 64 pp.$7.95. Selection of reprinted articles from Machinery Magazine(c.1915-1925) explore various aspects of foundries. Includesrestoring old foundry sand to usable condition; molding engineblocks at Henry Wallwork & Co. foundry in England; patternmaking for webbed and flanged wheels; centrifugal casting;plans for a 1925 induction heating furnace.

¢ John B. Lovis. The Blast Furnaces of Sparrows Point: 100Years of Iron-making on Chesapeake Bay. Canal History &Technology Pr. (610-559-6617), 2005. 118 pp., photos, maps,glossary. $15.95. Plant and company town built near Baltimore,MD, in the 1880s by the Pennsylvania Steel Co. and purchasedby Bethlehem Steel in 1916. Evolution of blast furnace practicefrom hand filling with wheelbarrows to the modern conveyorsystem. Author was an engineer at the plant from 1956 to1963. Operations during the 1950s are described in detail.

¢ Gene Rector. Last Air Force Blacksmith Retires fromRAFB. Macon (GA) Telegraph (Apr. 9, 2005;www.macontelegraph.com). Blacksmith Bob Herndon repairedaircraft parts for more than 50 yrs. at Robbins Air Force Base.His skills are no longer required.

WATER TRANSPORT¢ David R. Barker. W. P. Snyder Jr. Timeline (July-Sept. 2005),

pp. 26-29. Contemporary and historic photo album of the1918 W. P. Snyder Jr., the steam-powered, paddlewheel towboatmoored adjacent to the Ohio River Museum in Marietta, OH.The vessel was built for the Carnegie Steel Co. by James Rees& Co. and used primarily to bring barges from coal mines inthe upper Monongahela River Valley to the steel works atClairton, PA. Avail.: Ohio Historical Society, 1982 VelmaAve., Columbus, OH 43211-2497.

¢ Bill Bleyer. Blueprints for the Future. Newsday (May 1,2005). Developer is planning a center to interpret theBrooklyn Navy Yard’s history (tour site—2003 AnnualConference) and preserve more than 33,000 documents andarchitectural drawings left at the site.

¢ Covered Refrigerator Barges. Transfer No. 42, Jan.-June 2005,pp. 32-36. Commentary on, and reproductions of, drawingsand photos from HAER recording of the Shooters Island, NY,ship graveyard from Nov. 1984 to Jan. 1985.

¢ Mary Otto. C&O Canal River Center Surges Back to Life.Washington Post (May 22, 2005). Restoration of the 1830tender’s house at Lock 8 in Cabin John, MD.

Vol. 34, No. 3 Summer 2005

COMPILED BY Mary Habstritt, New York, NY; and Patrick Harshbarger, SIAN editor.


¢ Michael Brian Schiffer. The Electric Lighthouse in theNineteenth Century: Aid to Navigation and PoliticalTechnology. T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 275-305.While lighthouses were the first commercial application ofgenerator-powered, electric-arc lighting, beginning in the late1850s, by the end of the century only 30 electric-arc lights hadbeen installed out of thousands of lighthouses worldwide. Oillamps were cheaper and easier to maintain, but those countriesthat did install electric-arc lighting, particularly England andFrance, did so, to a degree, out of a sense of national pride.

¢ David C. Switzer. The Schooner Lizzie Carr: A Legacy ofthe Last Days of American Sail. The New HampshireArcheologist, vol. 43/44, no. 1 (2003/2004), pp. 93-106.Describes the excavation, recovery, and the museum exhibitionof a section of the wooden hull of a lumber schooner wreckedon the New Hampshire coast in 1905. Avail: NHArcheological Society, Box 406, Concord, NH 03302-0406.$20 ppd.

¢ Eric Tagliacozzo. The Lit Archipelago: Coast Lighting andthe Imperial Optic in Insular Southeast Asia, 1860-1910.T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 306-328. Gauges thecontribution of lighthouses, beacons, and buoys to English andDutch colonialism.

RAILROADS¢ Anthony J. Bianculli. Railroad History on American Postage

Stamps. Astragal Press (www.astragalpress.com), 2004. 280 pp.$35. Almost 200 stamps depicting various facets of railroading.

¢ Don L. Hofsommer. Minneapolis & the Railway Age. Univ.of Minn. Pr., 2005. 480 pp., photos. $31.50. Illustrated withmore than 200 period photos and maps of the city and thetracks that crossed it from the 1860s to 1960s. Also, TheHook & Eye: A History of the Iowa Central Railway. Univ.of Minn. Pr., 2005. 160 pp., photos. $27.50. Origins, growth,and eventual dismantling of a short line.

¢ Iron Icon: The Railroad in American Art, Apr. 22-23,2004. Proceedings of a Conference at the John W. BarrigerIII National Railroad Library. Published as Railroad HeritageNo. 14 (2005). Avail.: Center for Railroad Photography &Art, 1914 Monroe St., Box 259330, Madison, WI 53725;www.railphoto-art.org. Includes Betsy Fahlman [SIA], TheEngine as Art: The Railroad as Cultural Icon; Carlos A.Schwantes, The View from the Passenger Car Vestibule: TravelersInteract with the Passing Landscape; Michael E. Zega, TheAmerican Railroad Advertising Booklet, 1870-1950; Suzanne L.Burris, Vision of the West: The Burlington Northern & Santa FeRailway Collection; Alan Wallach, Thomas Cole and the Railroad:Ungentle ‘Maledications’; Kenneth W. Maddox, The Train in thePastoral Landscape; Leo G. Mazow, ‘And Picturesque ItEverywhere’: The Baltimore & Ohio’s Artists’ Excursion of 1858;Ron C. Tyler, The Most Picturesque and Wonderful Scenery:Illustrations from the Pacific Railroad Surveys; John Gruber [SIA],An Electrifying View of Chicago: Interurban Railway Posters.

¢ John McCluskey [SIA]. Idler and Reacher Car Pictorial.Transfer No. 42, Jan.-June 2005, pp. 17-19. Discussion of cartypes in service by the New York area railroads for use withtheir floatbridges. Includes 12 photographs and a listing ofother photos from the enthusiast literature.

¢ David C. Pearce [SIA] and Ralph A. Heiss. 18 Miles fromJersey City: The Lehigh Valley Railroad’s Bronx Terminal atEast 149th Street. Transfer No. 42, Jan.-June 2005, pp. 7-

16+19. Extensively illustrated history of one of the four“landlocked” railroad yards in the Bronx.

¢ Phil Sims. Rail-Marine in Mesopotamia. Transfer No. 42, Jan.-June 2005, p. 20 +16. Brief review of the railroad-car ferryoperations from 1908 to 1985 of the Entre Rios Railway on theParana River in the area of Argentina known as Mesopotamia.

¢ David R. Starbuck [SIA]. New Hampshire’s Best-LovedIndustrial Site: The Cog Railway on Mount Washington.The New Hampshire Archeologist, vol. 43/44, no. 1 (2003/2004),pp. 107-118. Reviews the history of the steam-powered railwaythat has operated between the base of the mountain and itssummit since 1866. Avail: NH Archeological Society, Box406, Concord, NH 03302-0406. $20 ppd.

¢ John H. White. War of the Wires: A Curious Chapter inStreet Railway History. T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp.374-84. Why Cincinnati was one of the few major cities toadopt a double-wire transmission system for its electric railways.

¢ Scott Wisner. Transfer Bridges at the Port of NY/NJ.Transfer No. 42, Jan.-June 2005, pp. 3-5+19. Commentary andtabular review of the architectural types and locations of therailroad transfer bridges in the area that were still in operationpost-WWII (42 installations). With bibliography onfloatbridges including Thomas Flagg’s [SIA] articles onfloatbridge details from Transfer.

AIR TRANSPORT¢ Janet R. Daly Bednarek. The Flying Machine in the Garden:

Parks and Airports, 1918-1938. T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr.2005), pp. 350-73. Story of the connection between the designof airports and parks in the 1920s and 1930s, which wasinfluenced by the view that the airplane was a source ofpractical transport and mass entertainment.

¢ Mark Bernstein. How the Airplane Learned to Fly. I&T(Summer 2005), pp. 12-19. Recounts the Wright Bros. 1904-05 experiments at Huffman Prairie, outside Dayton, OH. Theymade 154 flights, ending with a journey of 24 miles in anaircraft they could launch, control, and land at will.

¢ Derek Brumhead. Barton: Britain’s First Municipal Airportand Its Listed Buildings. IA News 133 (Summer 2005), pp. 4-5. City of Manchester’s 1928 aerodrome includes hangar,terminal building, and control tower.

BUILDINGS & STRUCTURES¢ Leonard K. Eaton. Hardy Cross, American Engineer. Univ.

of IL Press, c.2005. Cross, a Univ. of IL engineering professor(1921-1937), developed the moment-distribution method,allowing engineers to calculate statically indeterminate framesof steel and reinforced concrete for the first time. Later knownas the Cross method, this achievement made possible safe andefficient designs.

¢ Pat Frost. Lane End Brickworks, Buckley. IA News 133(Summer 2005), pp. 6-7. Documents Flintshire (UK)brickworks in continuous operation from 1792 to 2003.

¢ Dennis E. Howe [SIA]. Concrete in the ArcheologicalRecord: How Old Is It? The New Hampshire Archeologist, vol.43/44, no. 1 (2003/2004), pp. 119-157. Methods thatarcheologists may use to estimate the age of concrete usingphysical attributes. Avail: NH Archeological Society, Box 406,Concord, NH 03302-0406. $20 ppd.


¢ Chris Marr. Owners Discuss Remake of Mill. Rome (GA)News-Tribune (June 26, 2005). Adaptive re-use plans forRome’s Massachusetts Cotton Mills, est. 1896. Later part ofPepperell Mfg. Co.

BRIDGES¢ Eric DeLony [SIA]. Save Our Span! I&T (Summer 2005), pp.

30-35. Stories of ten historic bridges and the communityefforts to save them - Henszey’s Bridge (1869), Summerdale,PA; Blaine Bridge (1828), Blaine, OH; Aldrich Change Bridge(1858), Macedon, NY; Bow Bridge (1885), Hadley, NY;Clarkton Bridge (1901), Clarkton, VA; Hojack Swing Bridge(1905), Rochester, NY; Tenth St. Bridge (1920), Great Falls,MT; Bridge of Lions (1927), St. Augustine, FL; CalhounCounty Historic Bridge Park, Marshall, MI; Adaptive UseBridge Project, Amherst, MA. Also, Henszey’s Arch (1869).Structure Magazine (June 2005). www.structuremag.org/archives.Describes relocation and rehabilitation of patented bowstringarch-truss bridge to Central Pennsylvania College.

¢ Steven M. Richman. The Bridges of New Jersey: A Portraitof Garden State Crossings. Rutgers Univ. Press, 2005.Photographic and poetic “journey” across 60 of the state’sbridges, from impressive suspension bridges, like the BenFranklin and George Washington, to the small bridges that arecherished by local preservation groups.

POWER GENERATION¢ T. Lindsay Baker, compiler, and A. Clyde Eide, ed. A Guide to

United States Patents for Windmills and Wind Engines,1793-1950. International Molinological Society, 2005.Avail.: Windmill Books & Sales, Box 507, Rio Vista, TX76093; 121 pp., $27.50 ppd. Finding guide to over 3,500patents for windmills, windpumps, and wind electric generators.Introduction provides context on the history of windpowerutilization in the U.S. and on the system of patents. With theindividual patent numbers, readers can access the patentdrawings and specifications at the Internet Web site of the U.S.Patent & Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov). Alphabeticalname index to inventors.

¢ Robert H. Casey [SIA]. From the Henry Ford: The LineBetween Faith and Folly. T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp.475-78. Two 8-cylinder automobile engines—the Ford X-8 andFord V-8—are examined as case studies in sustainingmotivation through the setbacks inherent in technologicalinnovation.

AGRICULTURE & FOOD PROCESSING¢ Mary Frances Donalson. Old Turpentine Still Goes to School.

Bainbridge (GA) Post-Searchlight (June 14, 2005). Preservationof 1923 still, relocated from Georgia farm to the University ofFlorida (Gainesville) forestry museum.

¢ Kate Roberts. Rising from the Ruins: The Mill CityMuseum. History News, vol. 60, no. 2 (Spring 2005), pp. 27-29. Review of new exhibits at the Washburn A Mill inMinneapolis (SIAN Winter 2004).

¢ Jean Thalminy. Another Round, St. Paul, Minn., Searchesfor a Use for its Empty 150-Year-Old Brewery. PreservationOnline (Apr. 15, 2005); www.nationaltrust.org/magazine/archives/arch_story/041505.htm. Efforts to find an adaptive re-use forthe castle-like Jacob Schmidt Brewery complex (est. 1855).

ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION¢ Mark Coleman. Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100

Years of Music, Machines, and Money. Da Capo Press, 2003.237 pp. $24. Story of machine-made music and those who madeit possible. Rev: T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 427-29.

¢ James W. Cortada. The Digital Hand: How ComputersChanged the Work of American Manufacturing,Transportation, and Retail Industries. Oxford Univ. Pr.,2003. 494 pp. $34.95. How 14 different industries adopteddigital technologies after 1945. Case studies of automobile,steel, aerospace, petroleum, chemical, pharmaceutical,semiconductor, disk drives, software, railroads, trucking, andgrocery, apparel, and e-commerce retailing. Rev: T&C, vol.46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 439-41.

¢ Will Eastman. The Birth of Electronic Music. Prototype(2005, Issue 1), pp. 3-5. Documenting the development ofelectronic instruments from the 1920s to 1970s at theSmithsonian’s Lemelson Center.

¢ Experimental Crystal Set Receivers. Lindsay Publications(Box 538, Bradley, IL 60901; (815) 935-5353;www.lindsaybks.com), 2005. 48 pp. $6.95. Reprint of articlesfrom Modern Electrics, 1911-12. Crystal sets to listen to spark-gap transmitters sending morse code. Built at home byamateurs with simple materials.

¢ Mark Katz. Capturing Sound: How Technology HasChanged Music. Univ. of Cal. Pr., 2004. 276 pp. $19.95paper. Includes CD of music. Manipulation of soundtechnologies from phonograph to digital files has changed theway music is composed, listened to, and marketed. Rev: T&C,vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 429-30.

¢ Andre Millard, ed. The Electric Guitar: A History of AnAmerican Icon. Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr., 2004. 248 pp.From inventor’s workbench to recording studio, historians tracethe development, manufacture, and impact of the electricguitar.

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUERichard K. Anderson, Jr., Sumter, SC; T. Lindsay Baker, RioVista, TX; Dan Bonenberger, Morgantown, WV; Lyle Browning;George Bulow, New York, NY; Robert Chidester, Ann Arbor, MI;Arlene Collins, Houghton, MI; Jeff Darbee, Columbus, OH; EricDeLony, Santa Fe, NM; Don Durfee, Houghton, MI; DavidEngman, Warwick, MA; Betsy Fahlman, Tempe, AZ; Bob Frame,Minneapolis, MN; Greg Galer, North Easton, MA; Jane MorkGibson, Norristown, PA; Perry Green, Myrtle Beach, SC; DavidGuise, Georgetown, ME; Mary Habstritt, New York, NY; NeillHerring, Jesup, GA; Dennis E. Howe, Concord, NH; CharlesHyde, Detroit, MI; Robert Jackson, Austin, TX; Carolyn Kopp,New York, NY; Alan Lutenegger, Amherst, MA; Pat Malone,Barrington, RI; Tim Mancl, Camden, DE; Mary McCahon,Burlington, NJ; Larry Mishkar, Houghton, MI; Elizabeth Norris,Houghton, MI; Vance Packard, Thornhurst, PA; Art Peterson,Greenville, NC; David Poirier, Hartford, CT; Lynn Rakos,Brooklyn, NY; Bob Rawls, Burnt Hills, NY; David Rotenstein,Silver Spring, MD; Malka Schwartz, New York, NY; Bonnie Smith,Thornhurst, PA; John Teichmoeller, Ellicott City, MD; RobertVogel, Washington, DC; Gerry Weinstein, New York, NY; DavidWohlwill, Pittsburgh, PA; Suzanne Wray, New York, NY.

With Thanks.


¢ Megan Mullen. The Rise of Cable Programming in theUnited States: Revolution or Evolution? Univ. of Tex. Pr.,2003. 229 pp. $22.95 paper. History of cable television overthe past 50 years, from small community networks to majorcorporations. Rev: T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 432-34.

¢ David Paull Nickles. Under the Wire: How the TelegraphChanged Diplomacy. Harvard Univ. Pr., 2003. 265 pp. $30.95.Diplomats adjusting to the changing speed of communicationsand challenges of receiving and decoding cabled messages. Rev:T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 422-24.

¢ Ralph Baer: Video Games Wizard. Prototype (Summer 2004),pp. 3-5. Baer was inventor of some of the first practical videogames for use on home t.v. sets in the late 1960s. Hiscollection of patent drawings, notes, and objects has beendonated to the Smithsonian Institution.

¢ Kenneth Silverman. Lightning Man: The Accursed Life ofSamuel F. B. Morse. Knopf, 2003. 503 pp. $35. Biographyexplores the religious, moral, and artistic impulses in Morse’searly life that shaped his ambitions to promote himself as thesole inventor of the telegraph. Excellent job of discussing theinvention, development, and diffusion of the new technology.Rev: T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 420-22.

EXPLOSIVES & ORDNANCE¢ American Machinist Memories: Ordnance 1900-01. Lindsay

Publications (Box 538, Bradley, IL 60901; (815) 935-5353;www.lindsaybks.com), 2005. 80 pp. $11.95. Reprints of 17articles from American Machinist Magazine reveal the history,design details, and manufacturing techniques of various types ofordnance from Luger pistols to 12-in. coastal guns ondisappearing carriages. Includes extensive photos of SpringfieldArmory and tools used to mass produce the Krag-Jorgensen rifle.

¢ Kenneth Chase. Firearms: A Global History to 1700.Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2003. 290 pp. $30. Explores thetechnological, social, political, and cultural factors that explainwhy Europeans perfected firearms when it was the Chinese thatinvented them. Rev: T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 407-8.

¢ Jack Kelly. Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, andPyrotechnics—The History of the Explosive that Changedthe World. Basic Books, 2004. 260 pp. $25. General historyof the use and manufacture of gunpowder from the 10th c. tothe 20th. Rev: T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 405-6.

WATER CONTROL & RECLAMATION¢ Douglas E. Krupel. Fuel for Growth: Water and Arizona’s

Urban Environment. Univ. of Ariz. Pr., 2003. 294 pp. $39.95.Development of water systems in Tucson, Phoenix, andFlagstaff from the 1820s to present. One case study documentsthe competition for water between Flagstaff and the Atlantic &Pacific RR.

¢ David A. Simmons [SIA]. Upper Sandusky’s Indian Mill: TheDam and the River. Timeline (July-Sept. 2005), pp. 18-25.The dam and mill pond associated with an 1820 grist mill onthe Upper Sandusky River are examined as an illustrated casestudy in the conflict between preserving a historic waterpowersite and restoring the natural waterway by removing the damand mill pond as impediments to fish and other native aquaticlife in the river. Avail.: Ohio Historical Society, 1982 VelmaAve., Columbus, OH 43211-2497.

¢ Evan R. Ward. Border Oasis: Water and the PoliticalEcology of the Colorado River Delta, 1940-1975. Univ. ofAriz. Pr, 2003. 208 pp. $45. Ecological impacts of dams andirrigation systems established by the Mexican Water Treaty of1944, which guaranteed Mexico water from the river andprovided for the Morelos Dam to store and divert the water.

MISC. INDUSTRIES¢ Werner Abelshauser, Wolfgang von Hippel, Jeffery Johnson, and

Raymond Stokes. German Industry and Global Enterprise:BASF—The History of a Company. Cambridge Univ. Pr.2003. 677 pp. $75. 140-yr. history of the company explores thedevelopment of synthetic dyes, rubber, and plastics, andexpansion into fibers, magnetic tape, and pharmaceuticals.BASF sponsored the research and provided access to corporaterecords. Rev: T&C, vol. 46, 2 (Apr. 2005), pp. 446-47.

¢ Dana M. Batory. Vintage Woodworking Machinery, Vol. 2.Astragal Press (www.astragalpress.com), 2004. 208 pp. $29.Second in series of guides to major woodworking machinerymanufacturers. Covered in this volume are Parks Machine,Boice-Crane, Baxter D. Whitney & Son, and Crescent Machine.

¢ James Dao. A New Campaign to Preserve an Old MiningBattlefield. NY Times (May 15, 2005), p. A-14.Preservationists, union leaders, politicians, and property ownerswrangle over whether to nominate to the National Register the1400-acre site of the Battle of Blair Mt., where in 1921thousands of union miners confronted a force of sheriffs, statepolice, and coal-company guards. The five-day battle, whichincluded trench warfare (many miners were WWI veterans),machine gun battles, and bombs dropped from a plane, waseventually quelled by 2,000 federal troops.

¢ Thomas A. Kinney. The Carriage Trade: Making Horse-Drawn Vehicles in America. Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr., 2004.368 pp. $49.95. Traces the rise and fall of this varied industry,from the pre-industrial shop system to the coming of theautomobile. Case studies of Studebaker, NY-based luxurycarriage maker Brewster and dozens of smaller firms.

Publications of Interest is compiled from books and articlesbrought to our attention by you, the reader. SIA members areencouraged to send citations of new and recent books and articles,especially those in their own areas of interest and those obscuretitles that may not be known to other SIA members. Publicationsof Interest, c/o SIA Newsletter, 305 Rodman Road,Wilmington, DE 19809; [email protected].

ABBREVIATIONS:Common Ground = Published by the National Park Service,

www.cr.nps.gov/CommonGroundI&T = American Heritage of Invention & TechnologyIA News = Industrial Archaeology News, Bulletin of the Assn.

for Industrial Archaeology (UK)Prototype = News from the Lemelson Center for the Study of

Invention and Innovation, Smithsonian InstitutionT&C = Technology & Culture, Quarterly of the Society for

the History of TechnologyTransfer = Publication of the Rail-Marine Information Group,

www.trainweb.org/rmig.


Four Industrial Heritage Preservation Grants were awarded atthe SIA board meeting in Milwaukee on June 3, 2005. All grantrecipients have acquired matching funds to aid their projects.

The City of Superior, WI, was awarded $3,000 to helpfund a Historic Structures Report (HSR) for the S.S.Meteor, the last whaleback freighter (tour site—2000Annual Conference). The ship was launched in 1896 andwas designed and built by Cpt. Alexander McDougall.According to the grant application, “the unique design,including a round, cigar-shaped hull and snout-like bow wasbuilt for efficiency and stability. In addition, the steel-hulled whalebacks were less expensive to build and operateand carried significantly more cargo than their massivewooden contemporaries.” The HSR will not only providehistoric data on the vessel but will evaluate its conditionand provide recommendations to restore and preserve thevessel for the long-term. The National Trust for HistoricPreservation is a co-sponsor of the project with the city.

Friends of the East Broad Top Railroad (EBT) willreceive $3,000 to hire an historic architect to assemblematerials for a HAER documentation of the Coles StationWater Tank in Huntington County, PA, located within theEBT National Historic Landmark. The enclosed water tankis the last of many that once stood along the EBT line. Thewater towers, which provided water for the steam locomo-tives, were enclosed to prevent freezing. The documenta-tion will be submitted to the Library of Congress to be

deposited with existing HAER materials on the EBT.The Niagara Power Trail Project, sponsored by the City

of Niagara Falls, NY, will use the $3,000 awarded by theSIA to research and produce a National Register of HistoricPlaces (NRHP) Multiple Property Listing for the NiagaraPower Trail. Over 100 years of hydro-electric power histo-ry occurred in the Niagara Falls area and much of that his-tory can be seen on the landscape. NRHP nominations willbe prepared for four individual sites as well. A “Power Trail”tour will be designed as part of the overall project.

National History Day—Alaska was the recipient of $3,000to aid in the preservation and dissemination of the KennecottCopper Corp., Alaska archives. The materials date fromc.1915-37. The National Park Service is a co-sponsor andcurrently houses the archives in their Alaska Regional Office.The project will organize, catalog, microfilm, and provide dig-ital access to the data through a dedicated Website.

The SIA Grant Committee proposed and the boardapproved at its June meeting the awarding of grants on anannual basis with announcements held in conjunction withthe SIA Annual Business Meeting, generally held in June.The deadline for all applications is now 31 March, or theMonday following should the 31st fall on a weekend. Allapplications must be e-mailed or post-marked by that day.A total of $12,000 per year has been earmarked for grantsand no more than $3,000 will be awarded per applicant perannum. Info: www.sia_web.org n

Each year the SIA awards scholarships to students andyoung professionals to help defray the costs of attendingthe annual conference. The recipients who attended the2005 Annual Conference in Milwaukee were:

Rachael Herzberg is a second-year graduate student atMichigan Technological University (MTU). She beganlife as a classical archeologist who had never heard ofindustrial archeology until she worked an Etruscan sitewhere a variety of products were made. She has been toour conferences for the past two years, and she looks for-ward to staying active with the profession and helpingother students learn about IA.

Scott F. See left a career with a computer company toreturn to his alma mater, MTU, to pursue a graduatedegree in IA. He is completing his first year. Before mov-ing back to Houghton, Scott was active with the SamuelKnight chapter and wrote the SIAN review article on the2003 Fall Tour—Northeast Montana.

Alicia Valentino, an MTU graduate, is pursuing a doc-toral degree at the University of Arkansas. Her dissertationis on a 19th-c. sawmill complex in the Ozarks. At this con-ference, she presented a paper on multidisciplinaryapproaches to understanding industrial sites, using anArkansas mill as an example. Alicia has presented papers atpast conferences and actively contributes to SIA activities.

Members are encouraged to support the scholarshipprogram by making a donation to the fund. A check-off isprovided with annual dues notices. Applications forscholarships to next year’s conference in St. Louis will beaccepted in early 2006. Notice will appear in future issuesof SIAN. Info: Mary McCahon, SIA ScholarshipCommittee, Lichtenstein Consulting Engineers, Ste. 818,One Oxford Valley, Langhorne, PA 19047. n

2005 SIA Scholarship Recipients (left to right): Alicia Valentino, Scott F. See, and Rachael Herzberg.

2005 Student Travel Scholarship Recipients

SIA Preservation Grants Update

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The modest research project that David Rotenstein [SIA] began back in2002 documenting the history of Western Union Telegraph Company’s NewYork-Washington-Pittsburgh microwave relay system—the nation’s first com-mercial network—is yielding some interesting results as it uncovers the historyof a key chapter in American technological history. It also illustrates gapingholes in federal policies as they relate to identifying and potentially preservinghistoric engineering structures. Under recently issued FCC guidelines, theowners of the Western Union towers have no obligations to consider preserva-tion or documentation of components of the historic relay system of the 1940s.Fortunately, a Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) team recentlywas allowed to spend two days at a decommissioned tower on a 2,000-ft.-highridge in western Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands.

In early 1945 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted theWestern Union Telegraph Company (WUTCo) permits to develop experi-mental microwave relay systems in the Mid-Atlantic region of the UnitedStates. The permits were issued shortly after a major allocation of spectrum tonon-governmental entities that received national media coverage and spurredan electronics boom that included the widespread introduction of CB radios,car telephones, and even microwave ovens.

By January of the following year, WUTCo had acquired sites for nearly twentyrelay stations where it had planned to erect prefabricated fire lookout towers mod-ified to accommodate the revolutionary new microwave communications system.WUTCo also hired architect Leon Chatelain to design a fashionable and func-tional terminal station that would be compatible with the surrounding neighbor-hood in the Tenleytown section of Washington, D.C. (SIAN, Summer 2003). Theremaining three terminal stations—New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh—werehigh rise buildings where WUTCo placed rooftop antenna arrays.

Antennas and radio equipment designed by RCA were mounted inside ametal cabin atop each of the relay towers and in standardized concrete-blockbuildings. Radio equipment cabinets and each facility’s physical plant (a gasengine, banks of batteries, and a furnace) occupied the concrete-block build-ings. Each site was self-sufficient, remotely controlled by one of the terminalstations and visited regularly by maintenance crews.

One of the first WUTCo relay sites is located on a ridge in westernPennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands. WUTCo bought the 200-ft. by 200-ft. parcelin Oct. 1945 and proceeded to build a 100-ft.-tall steel tower. The site went intoservice in early 1948 and it operated until about 1963. WUTCo sold the prop-erty in 1976. Bypassed by the wireless telecommunications industry and in pri-vate ownership (its current owner, Pittsburgh businessman Bob Mallet, is enthu-siastic about its history), the relay station has remained unused since the 1960s.

In early June 2005, a HAER team documented the former WUTCo facility.Architect Christopher Marston, engineer-historian Larry Lee, photographer JetLowe, and David Rotenstein [all SIA] spent two days photographing and mea-suring the relay station. U.S. Forest Service lookout tower drawings andWUTCo architectural and engineering drawings provided baseline data for thefieldwork.

The documentation confirmed that the surviving archival documents leftbehind by WUTCo and in the files of the FCC are not sufficient to fully under-stand the engineering and architectural attributes of these early relay sites.Modifications were made to tailor each of the facilities to its particular locationwithin the microwave network and to accommodate changing technology dur-ing its period of significance. Additionally, the activities of the maintenancecrew also were evident in the surviving material culture. The HAER reportand drawings should be completed by early 2006.

David S. Rotenstein

Western Union Telegraph radioequipment boxes and antenna mounts

atop the relay tower.

HAER engineer-historian Larry Lee (left)and photographer Jet Lowe (right)[both

SIA] photograph tower detailsapproximately 90-ft. above the ground.

HAER architect Christopher Marston[SIA] checks notes on the catwalk atop

the relay tower.

Western Union Telegraph relay station.

HAER DOCUMENTS WESTERN UNION RELAY SITE

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New Federal Policies Endanger Historic American Engineering Sites


Recent actions by the Federal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) and other federal agencies areincreasing the likelihood that historically signifi-

cant 20th-century engineering sites may be lost due to aneasing of federal historic preservation regulations. Thebroadcast and telecommunications industries are requiredto comply with Section 106 of the National HistoricPreservation Act (NHPA) because they receive FCClicenses and permits to construct towers in addition to thevaluable licenses to use the electromagnetic spectrum.Section 106 requires the head of any federal agency hav-ing direct or indirect jurisdiction over a proposed federalor federally assisted undertaking to take into account theeffect of the undertaking on any property that is includedor eligible for inclusion in the National Register (NR).

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation(ACHP) issues rules for Section 106 compliance, includ-ing programmatic agreements when non-federal partiesare delegated major decision-making responsibilities.Programmatic agreements may be tailored to streamlinethe Section 106 process, or they can serve to exclude cer-tain types of federal undertakings from Section 106.

In 2003, the FCC and ACHP were under political pres-sure to exclude the construction of replacement communi-cation towers from Section 106. They issued a program-matic agreement opening the way for any FCC licensee todemolish a communications facility of any vintage withoutfirst evaluating its historic significance and NR eligibility.Potentially historic engineering properties, including FMtransmitters from the early 1930s, first-generationmicrowave relay facilities from the 1940s, and prototypesatellite communications facilities from the 1960s, are notsubject to Section 106 under the terms of the new rules.

The FCC and ACHP gave industry a free pass thatamounts to the same as if the Department ofTransportation did not have to evaluate old bridges or theDepartment of Defense was not required to evaluate his-toric military facilities. At an April 2005 oversight hear-ing, U.S. House of Representatives chairman of theSubcommittee on Parks (Devin Nunes, R-California)asked a telecommunications industry lobbyist, “If one ofyour towers was 50 years old, would it be your under-standing that they’d be potentially eligible under the cur-rent definition of the Act?” The lobbyist replied, “Weactually do have some towers that are 50 years old.Western Union Telegraph erected them and just like theexpression, ‘One person’s wildflower is another person’sweed,’ there’s a person who wishes to preserve some ofthese towers.”

The U.S. is not the only nation with historically signifi-cant communications facilities nor is it the only one to face

preservation challenges in a rapidly changing technologicalworld. In 2003 the English Department for Culture, Mediaand Sport added London’s BT (British Telecom)Communication Tower (built 1961-1965) to the nation’sList of Buildings of Special Architectural or HistoricInterest. The BT Tower was one of seven postwar commu-nications structures documented in a nationwide study ofCold War properties. “Britain was a world leader intelecommunications during the 1950s and 1960s, and theseseven new listings are a tribute to that scientific achieve-ment as well as being architectural icons of the times,” saidSir Neil Cossons, Chairman of English Heritage. Heunderscored the government’s opinion that listing wouldnot “impede the building’s continued scientific work” or itsevolution as an active communications facility.

Officials in the U.S. apparently take a different view ofsignificant engineering properties like communicationstowers and other infrastructure resources. In 2002, forexample, the ACHP issued the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission (FERC) an exemption from the Section 106requirement that it (and its applicants in the natural gastransmission industry) take into account the effects ofundertakings on historic gas pipelines. Unlike the broadlatitude granted the FCC with regard to its historic towers,FERC applicants bear at least some responsibility to miti-gate the adverse effects of abandoning a historic pipeline.

Historian Christopher Castaneda wrote in a 2004 arti-cle published in The Public Historian that the pipelineexemption stripped “pipelines of their significant historiccontext.” He added, “No matter what one thinks of thehistoric significance of natural gas pipelines, their exemp-tion from Section 106 review requirements represents apowerful example of how historically significant proper-ties can become historically insignificant under federallaw.” When it comes to certain types of historic proper-ties under the regulatory oversight of certain federal agen-cies, then—to paraphrase Bill Clinton—it all depends onwhat the meaning of the word “historic” is.

As non-federal beneficiaries of federal action—FCClicensees, pipeline owners, developers, and even banks—take on more responsibilities, federal agencies are adapt-ing to a new regulatory marketplace in which they haveless involvement and delegate more compliance responsi-bility to their applicants. The upside of this transforma-tion may be a more streamlined federal government butthe downside may be that attorneys, industry executives,and other special interests are crafting federal historicpreservation policies and setting the criteria for what con-stitutes a historically significant property.

David S. Rotenstein


Editor’s Note: Despite all of the survey work, a few bridges remainof which the historic bridge community is not well aware. It’s notevery day that one stumbles across two Ernest Ransome bridges.

In the June 1916 issue of Concrete magazine, reader assis-tance was sought in determining the oldest reinforced-con-crete bridge in the U.S. Three replies were received, all ofwhich cited the Alvord Lake Bridge (1889) in SanFrancisco’s Golden Gate Park as the oldest.

This bridge is a grade-separation structure, designed toprovide a safe path for pedestrians crossing under a portionof the main drive of the park (a section now called Kezar Dr.)on their way to and from the children’s playground. It has aclear span of approximately 20 ft. and a rise of 4 ft.-3 in.

Reinforced with iron bars twisted in accordance with thedesign patented by Ernest L. Ransome (1844-1917) in 1884,this modest structure has been cited as the predecessor ofthousands of reinforced-concrete bridges built across thenation in the 20th century. However, Ransome was knownprimarily as a builder of buildings, and the Alvord LakeBridge has sometimes been believed to be his only bridge.

Two of the respondents to the query of Concrete in 1916,however, also mentioned that Ransome built a secondbridge in Golden Gate Park in 1891, which was structural-ly similar to the Alvord Lake Bridge and had approximate-ly the same dimensions. One of these men, J. T. Burton, wasassociated with the technical division of the PortlandCement Association in Chicago. The other respondent wasEdgar K. Ruth, assistant engineer of the engineering depart-ment for the City of Cincinnati. Although these gentlemendid not mention the second bridge by name, by theirdescription it is clear that it had to be the structure that wasoriginally called the “Tunnel under Main Drive” or the“Chicken Point tunnel.”

Still extant, this bridge passes underneath what is nowcalled John F. Kennedy Drive, in front of the Conservatoryof Flowers. Rough measurements indicate that it hasdimensions very close to those of the Alvord Lake Bridge,and both structures feature an exterior finish designed tomake the concrete appear like stone. But unlike the AlvordLake Bridge, in which concrete “stalactites” hang above the

heads of pedestrians, the interior finish of the Tunnel underMain Drive is smooth.

The “tunnel” is undoubtedly the second oldest rein-forced-concrete bridge in the United States. Both it and theAlvord Lake Bridge were built by the Ransome & Cushingconstruction company, which also built the Leland StanfordJunior Museum in Palo Alto (1894), the largest reinforced-concrete public building in the world at the time.

The story of Ransome’s contribution to the design ofreinforced-concrete structures in the U.S. dates back to1870, the year that he emigrated to America from Englandto exploit his father’s patent for concrete, which was popu-larly referred to at the time as “artificial stone.” About 1875,after approximately four years as superintendent of thePacific Stone Company, Ransome founded his own compa-ny, manufacturing artificial stone, silicate of soda, and asso-ciated products.

In 1884, Ransome received the patent (No. 305,226)that became the basis of the Ransome system for reinforcingconcrete. Ransome adapted a concrete mixer to twist ironbars up to two inches in diameter, believing that twistedbars had greater tensile strength than smooth round bars.His primary focus was on finding the best way to make theconcrete adhere to the metal.

In the same year that he received his patent, Ransomebuilt his first reinforced-concrete building, the Artic OilWorks in San Francisco. For the next five years, he listedhimself in the San Francisco city directories as “patentee”and manufacturer of artificial stone, concrete, and artificialpavement. He continued to operate as a sole proprietorshipuntil about 1889 when he formed a construction companypartnership with Sidney B. Cushing, who is perhaps bestremembered as president of the Mill Valley & MountTamalpais Scenic Rwy. The memorial amphitheater nearRock Springs on Mt. Tamalpais is named for Cushing.

In 1889 Ransome formed a partnership with Francis M.Smith, the “borax king,” and opened the Ransome & SmithCompany in San Francisco while also maintaining his part-nership with Cushing. Ransome & Smith built an additionto the Pacific Coast Borax factory in Alameda, CA, in

BRIDGES OF ERNEST L. RANSOME

Alvord Lake Bridge (1889), GoldenGate Park, San Francisco.

Tunnel under Main Drive (1891),Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Footbridge (c. 1900) at Presdeleauestate, Shelter Island, NY.

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One of Rockford’s initial claims to fame was that it lay onthe route from Chicago to Galena, site of America’s mostproductive lead mines in the 1830s. Galena is situated inthe northwestern corner of Illinois near the MississippiRiver. The Galena & Chicago Union RR, charted in 1836,hoped to supplant the shipping of lead down the Mississippi,but almost two decades lapsed before, in 1852, the first trainchugged into Rockford. Another year lapsed before theRock River in Rockford was bridged to the west. TheG&CU never did make it to Galena; the main line wentfrom Chicago due west to the Mississippi at Fulton, con-ceding the Galena lead market to the Illinois Central RR.

An 1869 photograph shows work underway on an all-timber, arch-braced, G&CU railroad bridge across the RockRiver. Whether this bridge was the original 1853 crossingor a later replacement is undocumented. The bridge in thephotograph does not appear to be a new structure, but onethat is being repaired or upgraded. Reinforcing this belief isthat by 1869 it had become common practice to use ironrods or bars, rather than timber, for the tensile members oftrusses, and there are no iron members in this truss.

The most distinguishing feature of this all-timber bridgeis that the diagonal members in the truss web extendedacross two panels, while the counter diagonals are con-tained within a single panel. The paired, two-panel-longdiagonals are set at 45-degree slopes, theoretically the most

efficient angle. The lower-stressed counter diagonals areenclosed within a single panel between the verticals andthus are cleverly tucked away from physical conflict withthe main diagonals. The bracing arches are secured on theoutside of the underlining three-layer truss web sandwich.

The Rockford configuration represents an intelligent andpractical utilization of timber; the design maximizes the use ofcompressive members and minimizes the use of tensile mem-bers. Compression joints between timber members are easilymade, while tensile joints are difficult and inefficient. Sinceall of the web’s diagonals are arranged in a manner that placesthem under compression, they can be secured simply by endbearing. The tensile verticals, although weakened by beingnotched to secure them to the chords (see members layingon the ground in the foreground of the photo), are double theusual number, thus lessening the stress on each.

The Post truss, widely used between 1865 and 1880,shares similar characteristics with the Rockford Bridge trussin that both have two-panel diagonals and single-panelcounters. The geometric pattern of the Post truss diagonals,however, reverses that of the Rockford truss. The Post’sdiagonals slope down towards the center of the span, plac-ing them in tension rather than compression. The slightlytilted verticals are in compression rather than tension.Early examples of the Post truss used wrought iron for thediagonal and bottom-chord members, and timber for thetop chord and tilted, vertical members, thus clearly express-ing the nature of the forces on its members by the selectionof the appropriate material.

Since the 1869 photograph of the Rockford crossing isthe only discovered evidence of the bridge, how its buildersarrived at their solution is speculative. Apparently, a majorrequirement was that only timber members could be used,and a logical configuration was then devised to maximizethe use of compressive members in order to minimize themore difficult tensile connections between timber members.

The photo shows an arch only on the end span of themultispan bridge. As there had been a functioning railroadbridge across the Rock River since 1853, it seems reasonableto hypothesize that the photo is showing arches being addedto an existing crossing in order to help support the ever-increasing weight of locomotives. Another scenario, sug-gested by Kyle Wyatt, Curator of History & Technology atCalifornia State Railroad Museum, is that the arched-braced spans are in the process of being removed in order tobe replaced by new trusses resting on the old piers.Whatever is taking place at the time of the photograph, thearched-braced truss shown in the photograph depicts a dis-tinctive configuration that was the product of a sophisticat-ed reasoning process.

The practical common sense underlining the design ofthe Rock River Bridge lends credence to the suspicion thatother examples of this design may have been built, thoughnone have come to light.

David Guise


THE TIMBER CROSSING AT ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS

The Rock River Bridge of the Galena & Chicago UnionRR, Rockford, IL, 1869.

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tinues to fight for a National Museum of Industrial Historyat the Bethlehem site.

Lance is responsible for written histories of many of theindustrial sites of Pennsylvania, including The AnthraciteIron Industry of the Lehigh Valley with Craig Bartholemew,Saint Nicholas Central Breaker with Michael Workman, andBethlehem Steel with photographs by Andrew Garn. He haswritten or contributed to many other books as well and hasproduced articles on a wide range of topics, including theMolly Maguires. He is also the editor in chief of CanalHistory & Technology Press, where he compiles the impres-sive proceedings of its annual symposium and tirelessly pro-motes its publications.

The SIA has long benefited from his participation. Hehas been a director on the SIA board, president of theRoebling Chapter, a frequent presenter at annual confer-ences, and the organizer of our fall tour in 2002.

Lance is a public historian in the best sense of the term.He reaches out to a wide audience and brings new peopleinto our field. He is particularly impressive for his workwith young people, who represent the future of industrialarcheology. When he is introducing eighth graders to

blacksmithing, he is laying the groundwork for future schol-arship and sharing his exceptional gift for public interpreta-tion of the industrial heritage.

The General Tools Award is the highest honor that theSIA can bestow. The award recognizes individuals who havegiven sustained, distinguished service to the cause of indus-trial archeology. Criteria for selection are as follows: (1) Therecipient must have given noteworthy, beyond-the-call-of-duty service, over an extended period of time, to the cause ofindustrial archeology. (2) The type of service for which therecipient is recognized is unspecified, but must be for other thanacademic publication. (3) It is desirable but not required thatthe recipient be, or previously have been, a member of theSIA. (4) The award may be made only to living individuals.

The General Tools Award was established in 1992through the generosity of Gerald Weinstein [SIA], chair-man of the board of General Tools Manufacturing, Inc. ofNew York City, and the Abraham and Lillian RosenbergFoundation. The Rosenbergs founded General Hardware,the predecessor to General Tools. The award consists of anengraved sculpture (“The Plumb Bob”) and a cash prize. n

NOTES & QUERIESAmerican Canals, NY State Barge Canal, and Knox MineDisaster. The National Canal Museum (Easton, PA) andthe Pennsylvania Canal Society are sponsoring a series ofpublic lectures and book signings. Sept. 15: Robert Kapsch[SIA], Canals, a modern treatise on canal engineering andthe impact of canals on America’s national development.Oct. 20: Michelle McFee, The Long Haul: A History of theNew York State Barge Canal; Nov. 17: Kenneth Wolensky,Voices of the Knox Mine Disaster (the 1959 breakthrough ofthe Susquehanna River into an anthracite mine broughtunderground mining to an end in the Wyoming Valley).All lectures begin at 7:30 pm at the Two Rivers Landingauditorium, 30 Centre Sq., Easton. Info: (610) 559-6613.

Info on Architect William Higginson. A graduate studentat NY University is seeking information on, and possiblythe papers of, the architect responsible for many of the rein-forced-concrete warehouses and factories along theBrooklyn waterfront, including most of Bush Terminal (toursite—2003 Annual Conference). Info: Malka Schwartz,[email protected].

Upstate NY Industrial Tours. The Hudson MohawkIndustrial Gateway and Burden Iron Works Museum spon-sor a series of tours each year. Recent and planned toursinclude NY State Barge Canal Workshops, textile manufac-turing at M. N. Bird Co., origins of the modern horseshoe,railroad history of Troy, and stained glass. Info: HMIG, OneEast Industrial Parkway, Troy, NY 12180; (518) 274-5267;www.hudsonmohawkgateway.org.

IA in Philately. Canada Post has issued four new, domes-tic-rate (50¢) stamps that are a celebration of Canadianbridges. The bridges are unusually depicted as “action pho-tos” of people “interacting” with the bridges. The 1900Jacques Cartier Bridge over the St. Lawrence at Montreal isshown from the driver’s perspective, looking through awindshield with the driver’s eyes shown in the rearview mir-ror. The other stamps depict the 1955 Angus L.MacDonald suspension bridge in Nova Scotia from the per-spective of a sailboat passing underneath it; the 1955 CansoCauseway swing bridge that connects Nova Scotia withCape Breton Island from the perspective of a Coast Guardship passing the open drawbridge; and a 1904 “swinging”pedestrian suspension bridge in Souris, Manitoba.

Trading Music: New Jersey’s Instrument Makers. Exhibitat the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts (Madison, NJ) runsthrough Jan 15. Examines the techniques and tools used inthe fabrication of musical instruments from an early-19th-c.clarinet made by the NJ Peloubet Co. to a modern-dayPuerto Rican-made guitar known as a cuarto. There willalso be a fife from the War of 1812, Civil War bugle andflute, 1830s guitar, church bass, and late-19th-c. banjo.Info: (973) 377-2982; www.metc.org.

Eureka Smut Separating Machine. An English flour millpreservation group, the Crabble Mill restoration trust, is seekinginformation, drawings, and advice on restoring to operation anAmerican-made 19th-c. grain cleaning and smut separatingmachine. SIA members with information are encouraged tocontact Neil at [email protected]; www.ccmt.org.uk n

LANCE METZ (continued from page 6)


CHAPTER NEWSOliver Evans (Greater Philadelphia) held its annual film-fest in May. Lance Metz [SIA], historian at the NationalCanal Museum, presented a railroad-themed evening with1950s footage of the Reading RR, Pennsylvania RR electriclocomotives of the 1940s to 1970s, and the silent-film clas-sic The General (1924) starring Buster Keaton. In June,chapter member Bob Thomas gave a presentation and led atour of Philadelphia’s Kensington & Tacony railbed, whichis being converted into a heritage trail.

On July 16, the chapter celebrated the 200th anniversaryof Oliver Evans’s Orukter Amphibolos with a lecture andceremony at the Atwater Kent museum attended by morethan 100. Philadelphia’s mayor proclaimed July 16“Orukter Amphibolos Day,” and a group of dignitaries roadon a decorated amphibious “duck” vehicle, bowing low asthey passed 9th and Market where Oliver Evans had hisshop and built the Orukter in 1805. The Orukter was anamphibious steam-powered dredge that is widely regardedas the first motorized vehicle to travel a public street(SIAN, Spring 2005).

Roebling (Greater NY-NJ) toured the infrastructure ofRoosevelt Island in June. Sites included the tram station, theGoldwater Hospital steam plant, the trolley kiosk, and theruins of the smallpox hospital. In Aug., chapter memberscruised the East River aboard the fireboat John J. Harvey.

Southern New England visited the Old New-Gate Prisonand the Noble & Cooley drum factory in May (tour sites—1998 Fall Tour, Central Connecticut River Valley; SIAN,Spring 1999). The prison includes the remains of an 18th-c. copper mine. Noble & Cooley, est. 1854, manufacturesmilitary, toy, and professional-grade drums on vintagemachinery. Company president Jay Jones demonstrated themachinery. Helena Wright [SIA], curator of graphic arts atthe Smithsonian, gave a brief presentation about theprocesses used to print patterns on toy drums.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CHAPTERFor info on a chapter near you or to start one, contact:

Lynn Rakos, SIA Director, Local Chapter Chair(917) 790-8629; [email protected]

IA ON THE WEBChicago Steel Museum (www.chicagosteel.org). Chicago’sSteel Heritage Project plans to purchase the former AcmeSteel coke works for a steel industry museum.

Merritt Parkway (www.merrittparkway.org). Meritt ParkwayConservancy is working to preserve and celebrate the late-1930s motor expressway in southwest CT.

Mesta Machine (images.library.pitt.edu). 164 on-line imagesillustrate the manufacturing of steel-mill equipment at Mesta’sfactory in W. Homestead, PA, between 1906 and 1920. Theentire collection of more than one-thousand glass-plate nega-tives is held by the Historical Society of Western PA.

Schell Bridge (www.schellbridge.org). Northfield, MA, isrehabilitating the 1903 cantilever-truss bridge over theConnecticut River, out of service for more than 20 years.

Steamboy (www.sonypictures.com/steamboy) is a Japanese,animated film that takes place in England in the 1860s. Theplot is typical for the genre and some of the thermodynam-ics are questionable, but it’s a feast for IA eyes—gadgets, fly-ing machines, locomotives, and bursting steam pipes.

Textile Factories in the South, 1861-65 (www.uttyl.edu/vbetts/textile_factories.htm). Extensive collection of newspa-per clippings from Civil War-era newspapers locate anddescribe textile mills and their operations.

Triangle Shirt Waist Fire (ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/organiza-tions_ny_investigation.html). The complete 13-vol. investi-gating report is available in digital format. The 1911 firetook the lives of 146 workers in NYC. The report was a full-scale investigation of working conditions in the garmentindustry.

“IA on the Web” is compiled from sites brought to the editor’sattention by members, who are encouraged to submit their IAWeb finds by e-mail: [email protected]. n

1889, and a warehouse in Bayonne, NJ, in 1898, usingRansome’s method.

Recently, a third Ransome-built bridge has come to light:an elegant little arched footbridge across a pond onPresdeleau, Smith’s private estate on Shelter Island, NY.The construction date of this bridge has not yet been docu-mented, but it was probably built just after 1900.

The two bridges erected in San Francisco and the bridgeat Shelter Island are the only bridges known to have beenconstructed by Ernest Ransome. Others may exist, howev-er, and SIA members are encouraged to contact RobertJackson at [email protected].

Robert Jackson

ERNEST RANSOME (continued from page 18)


SITES & STRUCTURESCelebrated ... Two sites of IA interest were designatedNational Historic Landmarks (NHL) in April. NHL statusis reserved for sites of exceptional historic significance. TheAuburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Factory in Auburn,IN (SIAN, Winter 2002) was designated as one of the fewremaining examples of an independent specialty automobilecompany that made hand-assembled rather than mass-pro-duced automobiles. The NHL includes the Art Deco-styleshowroom and administration building, service and newparts department building, and the Cord L-29 building. TheLightfoot Mill (1749-1830) in Chester Springs, PA, is asmall 18th-c. custom grain mill with its power transmissionsystem surviving completely intact. Survey suggests that noother custom mills in the U.S. from this period survive witha system so intact. The basic technology of this mill datesfrom the mid-18th-c., later adapted to make use of several ofthe automating inventions of Oliver Evans. At Lightfoot,

one can see the impact of automation on traditional milling.Info: www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/.

In June, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE)celebrated the Bridges of Niagara with a plaque dedicationceremony at Niagara Falls State Park, NY. The bridges wererecognized as an International Historic Civil EngineeringLandmark. The plaque reads, in part, “Since 1848 manybridges have spanned the Niagara Gorge below NiagaraFalls. The design and construction of these bridges was nec-essary for the economic development of the Niagara Fallsarea. The demand for safe and convenient crossings waseasily apparent. This need provided a great challenge tocivil engineers and to the development of bridge engineer-ing technology. The successful crossing of the gorge


Edward F. “Ned” Heite, 66, died April 17, 2005 inCamden, DE. He held BA and MA degrees from theUniversity of Richmond, was the Editor of Virginia

Cavalcade for a number of years, and also functioned as thefirst de facto Virginia state historical archeologist. Aftermoving to Delaware in 1969, he was a Hagley Fellow atthe University of Delaware and became chief of theDelaware Bureau of Archives and Records. He also taughtbusiness information systems in the University ofDelaware’s Dept. of Business Administration.

He collected printing presses, and ran them. He had avintage Land Rover that he used as his personal trans-portation and belonged to every mailing list and sub-scribed to every publication on them that existed. Hewrote syntheses on iron in the Chesapeake region and ontown plans as artifacts. He reviewed beer and brewed hisown, and had his own artifact type collection, wrotereviews of books, wrote op-editorial pieces, “stinkbombs,”for local and national distribution and was honestly dis-tressed if folks agreed with him. His objective was simplyto get people to think.

He founded Heite Consulting, Inc. as a historian andarcheologist and worked indefatigably on the industrialhistory of Delaware. He was a member of the AdvisoryBoard for the Falling Creek (VA) Ironworks Committee(the first New World iron furnace). He excavated at theFredericksville (VA) Furnace, site of the first industrialarcheological excavation in North America in the 1880s.

Certified by the Society of Professional Archaeologists,he was the author of over 200 technical reports. He wasinsatiably curious about every aspect of archeology andwas a decidedly anti-theory-oriented practitioner. Hesaid, “We ask the dirt.” His motto was, “Any knowledge

is a subset of archeology.”An excavation of a 19th-century cannery resulted in a

few cut sheets of metal that he turned into a treatise on themanufacture of cans. That was a typical Heite contribu-tion. He excavated acculturated Native American sites inDelaware. Recognizing connections from his historicalwork in Virginia, he wrote a highly regarded report onethno-historical research. His last and unfinished work wason small-scale bloom smelting on a Delaware farmstead.

Most of all, he was remarkable for his vast knowledge ofvirtually any subject imaginable, provided it could be relat-ed in some way to the past. He melded the objective andthe practical knowledge together and used that to extendhis understanding of the technological processes involved.

Lyle Browning

Ned Heite with “Baby,” his vintage Land Rover.

Ned Heite, 1939-2005


required the skill of many engineers willing to take risks andextend their engineering knowledge beyond establishedlimits. Their foresight and intuition contributed to therefinement and advancement of design techniques for sus-pension and arch bridges.” The Bridges of Niagara are theNiagara Suspension Bridge (1848); Lewiston & QueenstonSuspension Bridge (1851); Niagara Railway SuspensionBridge (1855); Niagara Falls & Clifton Suspension Bridge(1869); Niagara Cantilever Railway Bridge (1883); NiagaraRailway (Whirlpool Rapids) Arch Bridge (1897)*; FallsView (Honeymoon) Arch Bridge (1898); Lewiston &Queenston Suspension Bridge (1899); Michigan CentralArch Bridge (1925)*; Rainbow Arch Bridge (1941)*; andthe Lewiston-Queenston Arch Bridge (1962)*. (* currentlyin use.)

Preserved ... Harrison Coal & Reclamation HistoricalPark (New Athens, OH) is preserving a c.1950 Marion7200 dragline donated by James Brothers Coal Co.Volunteers have been mobilizing to raise funds to move thedragline, which has a 7-yd. bucket, 120-ft. boom, and aFairbanks-Morse engine. Up to 18 semi-truck loads (four ofthem oversize) will be required to move the disassembleddragline to the park for reassembly. The Marion 7200 willbe joining the HCRP’s growing shovel and dragline collec-tion that includes a Hanson 31 shovel, Marion 111-Mdragline, and Insley L dragline. The park’s ultimate goal isto acquire the Silver Spade, a 105-cu.-yd. Bucyrus-Erie1950-B, the last operating stripping shovel in Ohio, and oneof only four in the U.S. The organization is seeking volun-teers and donations to help it preserve southern Ohio’s sur-face mining heritage. Info: www.hcrhp.org.

New York City’s High Line project (SIAN, Spring-Summer2004) received a crucial federal authorization in June, effec-tively opening the way for the 1.5-mile-long viaduct’s trans-formation into a public park. The High Line was builtbetween 1929 and 1934 to eliminate grade crossings of theNew York Central’s West Side Freight Line in Manhattan.The last freight train operated in 1980 and since then theHigh Line had deteriorated. Since 1999, the Friends of theHigh Line (FHL) have been working to reuse the viaduct asan elevated walkway. Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsedthe project in 2002. The Surface Transportation Board(STB), the federal body that oversees rail corridors, issued aCertificate of Interim Trail Use (CITU) on June 13. Thecertificate enables CSX Transportation, the High Line’scurrent owner, to negotiate for the transferal of the HighLine to the city. This process, known as “railbanking,” is amethod of creating trails from out-of-use rail corridors. Itwas established by Congress in 1983. To date, over 13,000miles of rail-trails have been opened across the U.S., withnearly 16,000 more in development, but none that incorpo-rate such a lengthy structure as the High Line.

Threatened ... the Simon Silk Mills complex at 39th St. inUnion City, NJ, is on Preservation New Jersey’s “10 MostEndangered Historic Sites” list. The mammoth industrial

site, many parts of which date to 1874, is the last of thegreat mills that made northern Hudson County a center ofthe silk textile industry. Info: www.nationaltrust.org/maga-zine/archives/arc_news_2005/021005.htm.

Lost ... Four iconic smokestacks that were part of the LongIsland City Powerhouse (1903-05) in Queens, New YorkCity, have been demolished as part of a plan to redevelopwhat remains of the powerhouse as luxury condominiums.Roebling SIA chapter and other preservation groups initi-ated a campaign to save the 275-ft.-tall, black smokestacksbut the developer was unwilling to wait to receive a vari-ance that would have allowed them to be incorporated intothe condo’s design. The powerhouse was one of the firststeam-turbine generating plants in the country. For nearlya century it has been a prominent, visual landmark of theQueens waterfront.

It has been over 100 years since the last iron lenticular-truss bridge was built. Now, a new bridge of this uniquegeometry has been fabricated and is currently on display atthe University of Massachusetts—Amherst. AlanLutenegger [SIA], Prof. of Civil & EnvironmentalEngineering, designed the bridge; engineering studentsfabricated and constructed it. Modeled after the shortestspans built and sold by the Berlin Iron Bridge Co. of E.Berlin, CT, from about 1880 to 1900, the new bridge is athree-panel 20-ft.-long pony truss. It will be used as apedestrian bridge. Like many of its predecessors, the newbridge has upper chords and end posts fabricated fromchannel sections, and lower chords composed of flat eyebars. Prof. Lutenegger is currently working on a bookabout the design and application of lenticular-truss bridgesin the 19th century. He has visited all of the remaining 60or so built by Berlin and documented their dimensions andconditions. He is also planning to design and build a 5-panel, 40-ft.-long configuration next.

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Sept. 29-Oct. 2: SIA FALL TOUR, DETROIT, MI.Info: [email protected]; www.sia-web.org.

Oct. 5-9: Assn. of Railway Museums Conference,Strasburg, PA. Hosted by the RR Museum of PA. Info:www.rrmuseumpa.org.

Oct. 14-16: Historic Ironmaking Conference(Ironmasters Conference), Sterling Forest State Park,Tuxedo, NY. Info: Edward J. Lenik, 100 Deerfield Rd.,Wayne, NJ 07470; [email protected].

Oct. 20-22: Annual North American Labor HistoryConference, Wayne State Univ., Detroit, MI. Topic:Labor, Solidarity, and Organizations with an emphasis on theIWW. Info: Janine Lanza, Dept. of History, 3094 FacultyAdmin. Bldg., WSU, Detroit, MI 48202; 313-577-2525;[email protected]; www.cla.wayne.edu/history/confcal/nalhc.

Oct. 27-29: Pioneer America Society Annual Conference,Baton Rouge, LA. Theme: Changing Landscapes of theLower Mississippi Valley. Tours of French and Arcadian ver-nacular architecture, and of the human transformation of thevalley’s environment, including engineering of theMississippi River. Info: www.pioneeramerica.org.

Nov. 3-6: Society for the History of Technology AnnualMeeting, Minneapolis, MN. Info: www.shot.jhu.edu.Nov. 4-6: Technology and the Home Conference, NewBrunswick, NJ. Paper sessions explore the positive andnegative impacts of appliances, lighting, heating, and dec-orative materials. Info: www.wcenter.ncc.edu/gazette/.

Nov. 20-26: SIA STUDY TOUR TO BOLOGNA,ITALY. Info: Mary Habstritt, SIA Events Coordinator;[email protected]; 212-769-4946.

2006Mar. 29-Apr. 2: Second International Congress onConstruction History, Queens’ College, University ofCambridge, UK. Info: www.chs-cambridge.co.uk.

Apr. 27-30: Preserving the Historic Road Conference,Boston, MA. Info: www.historicroads.org.

June 1-4: SIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE, ST. LOUIS,MO. Info: [email protected]; www.sia-web.org.

June 8-10: Business History Conference AnnualMeeting, Toronto, ON. Info: BHC, Box 3630,Wilmington, DE 19807; www.thebhc.org.

June 9-11: Railroad Station Historical SocietyConvention, Helena, MT. Tours of stations, bridges, tun-nels, roundhouses and shops; annual banquet with speaker.Info: Art Peterson, 3200 Gordon Dr., Greenville, NC27834; (252) 756-7380; [email protected].

June 14-17: Vernacular Architecture Forum AnnualMeeting, New York, NY. Theme: City Building. Info:vernaculararchitectureforum.org.

2005